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While the Covid-19 pandemic brought tremendous change to a lot of our work lives, another major change has been the increased prioritization of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the workplace. By no means is DEI a new concept in the technology business world, but it’s clear that a lot of progress has been made with DEI becoming a leading priority in hiring and team creation. As with all things where progress is made, many feel that there is much further to go.

The advantages and strengths created with an inclusive workforce are nothing new for Nodine, who has been at the forefront of driving the discussion for most of her career.

The “Why” Behind Inclusion

To get to the “Why”, Nodine looks back on her own experience.

“I’ve been on two different teams that took immense strides in creativity and productivity, and honestly were the most fun too. They were my best teams, and by far had the most impact in technology development overall. They had a couple things in common and one was that they were incredibly diverse. We had women, men, introverts, extroverts, people of all races. One of the teams was the first time I encountered anyone in the transgender community and learned what that really meant. The great experiences I had on those teams versus the experiences I’ve had on more monolithic teams have led me to personally value diversity and the creativity that comes from it.”

Nodine sees expanding diversity as a win-win proposition. She’s seen some people view it as a win-lose proposition, and thinks this lens needs to be adjusted.

“When you have a team that values diversity and pulls that in, you get an incredible boost. In the long-term, it’s been proven how diverse organizations see the benefits of diversity, whether in their corporate bottom line, employee satisfaction or other important metrics,” Nodine says. “You’ve seen a lot of studies, a few out of Forbes, that have concretely shown the benefits of diversity. The positive impact on the bottom line is definitely there, and when the bottom line improves, things tend to go better. While improving the monetary side is really good, coupled with that improvement is the improvement in teamwork, where the team members each have a unique lens that improves the whole. Being accepting and supportive of people of who they really are adds significant value.”

“The other thing that DEI contributes is that if you want to have products that are both creative and durable, you really do want to look at the base of who your customer is and make sure your team reflects those customers. This means doing your research well. Creativity relies on uncovering and clarifying new problems, especially where you are making a product where there has not been a product like this before. You want to have the collective input from diverse teams because they uncover new problems instead of getting stuck in old problems. I think the creativity idea is incredibly strong and diversity is really important, at least to the extent of your customer base.”

Inclusion is the First Step

Nodine has written extensively about In Group Thinking, which is a common trait in organizations. In Groups are social groups to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. “So if you look at groups and how they work, you start out identifying people by shared experiences and commonalities, mentally grouping them. I don’t think we’re ever going to get away from that type of thinking – here’s my group and here’s their group. Part of the key is to make everybody part of ‘Our’ group, so inclusion becomes the vector that enables people to start identifying their work group as their primary group. This is us and we’re accomplishing this as opposed to looking inside your work group and seeing the other natural divisions,” she says.

“Allowing group divisions to get in our way is visible, as you can clearly detect when you are disproportionately elevating some people and disproportionately putting down other people. We can see that in our language. If leaders or management can bring everyone back to a point of belonging, that helps counter things. If managers of the group, all the way up to the executive suite, observe where things are not balanced and if you can counter it naturally and easily, you can continue to bring the team together.”

“You can’t really start with diversity and then strive for inclusion. Inclusion is the first step. While it’s really hard to put things in order sometimes, I think you can do it when you start with simple things. The simplest thing is to build trust between your employees – all of them. How do you build trust? There is a quote by Brene Brown: ‘Trust is earned in the smallest of moments. It is earned not through heroic deeds, or even highly visible actions, but through paying attention, listening, and gestures of genuine care and connection.’ So if you can build those things into your company – paying attention, listening to everyone, genuinely caring and connecting with people, you build trust and I think you naturally see inclusion following from there. Once inclusion comes along, you’re able to push your diversity boundaries more strongly.”

Nodine continues, “One way to create inclusion with your teams, whether engineering or not, is to periodically ask your employees to fill in the blank:

I work best when I _________________.

Whether the answer is ‘sitting in the corner and not disturbed’, or ‘when I don’t have any meetings’ or ‘when I’m socializing with people and interacting with them’, everyone has a way that they work best and asking that question allows for us to be inclusive knowing there are going to be different responses. This allows the company to be fair and have a culture of inclusivity, which in turn puts the employee in a situation where they can be more productive, all the while supporting the company’s best interests because productivity is maximized.”

Diversity and Universal Design

It’s clear for DEI to be a priority, diversity must be a value. “When diversity is a clear company value, you begin to identify more with your organization and less with your other groups. I’ve been part of organizations that have tried really hard to make diversity a priority and you can see how people gravitate towards their organization because it’s diverse, which propels the advantages of diversity,” she says.

“The framework for creating diversity is dependent on each company. There clearly isn’t a one fits all solution. That said, you can create a culture that fosters diversity. Listening and a culture of listening is critical. It helps employees work through conflict. When an employee’s productivity drops off or you see changes in behavior, listening allows you to understand and accept where people are coming from. A culture of listening enables you to align with others. Just knowing you are listened to allows you to feel cared about and therefore, more productive.”

She continues, “There is also a concept around universal design that Marcelle Ciampi writes about as it aligns with the workplace. Universal design was originally an architectural design method, like getting the ramps in crosswalks on the corner of streets. While they were created primarily to help people in wheelchairs, they also help parents pushing strollers, workers unloading equipment, etc, so everyone really benefits from it. Looking at universal design and applying it to HR policy, what you develop are policies that universally include the entire workforce versus policies directed at specific groups. This helps uplift the entire organization.”

Removing Bias – Especially Your Own

Everyone has bias, whether they acknowledge it or not. That isn’t a bad thing. It’s just real. Understanding that you have bias and what that bias entails is critical. Nodine noted, “There are two ways of removing bias. We tend to focus on one and forget about the other. The first is having a true awareness of what biases you might have. The second is to change, because you have the internal drive that changing is the right thing to do. Early in my career, I used to have DEI training as an engineer, taking quizzes after watching videos. Engineers are smart, so giving the answer you know the quiz wants is easy, and that was our DEI training. It was completely useless for the organization and the employee – the training just didn’t translate to behavior.”

 “There is definitely a question of awareness versus willingness. There are a couple different ways to be aware that you are thinking in a biased way. There is a concept of double empathy that Damian Milton defined where a group thinks they have empathy while another group thinks they have none and vice-versa. What this made me take away is that if I’m trying to talk to you and you’re having a hard time listening to me or responding to me, it’s actually an indicator that I’m having a hard time speaking, listening or responding to you. If I’m perceiving a lack of understanding on your part then it very likely that there is a lack of understanding on my part. There is an anonymous quote that, ‘If you told someone something a thousand times and they still don’t get it, it’s not them that is the slow learner’. The willingness to understand why you don’t understand someone’s viewpoint when they are not understanding you, flipping it around, helps you understand where you might be thinking in a biased way or jumping to conclusions that are incorrect. That’s a big step.”

Nodine adds, “Willingness to change is the second way to remove bias, and it’s really hard. Because of this, this starts with listening – listening to other people, their stories, and why they are where they are. Listening makes you connect, even if it’s with those that you don’t easily connect with. It opens the door to having a culture of people telling their stories, which in turn builds trust and inclusion.”

Winning with Products Created by Inclusive and Diverse Teams

Nodine knows organizations will win more with a focus on inclusion and diversity. While most of us strive for it, the difficult realities of growth and scaling mean executing consistently on it is harder than it looks. Creating an environment that builds trust, promotes inclusivity and values diversity must be intentional and done with purpose, knowing the advantages are measurable and real.

“We have so many resources and strengths around us that we sometimes ignore – our ability to be creative, our unique insights, our empathy, our knowledge – I think that being able to take full advantage of the resources each company has is an enormous advantage. This is beyond the company level. I think about it on the national level. For America to continue to drive prosperity, we want to be able to maximize everyone’s ability and utilize their gifts and strengths to make that happen. Analytically, I know this is a huge, complex optimization problem.”

She concludes, “I think that if we take a long-term perspective, this works. If you are looking at solutions that are durable and long-lasting – those that benefit a lot of people and drive prosperity using everyone’s strengths – then you have to learn to focus on and prioritize inclusion and diversity. Everyone is gifted with a different mind, strengths, and weaknesses. Looking at it holistically, we have to put all these pieces together to create the best outcome. Enabling the situation where we bring everything to bear on the problem is it’s own biggest advantage. It creates bigger innovation, higher productivity, and it shows up in the solutions and the durability of the products we’re putting out. It differentiates organizations from those that may be more homogeneous while having a really solid social benefit that attracts great talent.”

Marian Nodine is a graduate of MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Brown University. She is the former Chief Scientist at Elastic Knowledge in Austin, and previously worked as the Data Architect at Spiceworks and Lead Data Scientist at StepOne. She is currently a consultant and coach, helping organizations build and nurture diverse technical teams.

If you’d like to connect with Marian, she can be reached at [email protected].

Celebrate. 

Before founding HealthIQ, Shah was the co-founder & CEO of Like.com (computer vision/machine learning company sold to Google) & co-founder & CEO of Andale (eventually sold to Alibaba). That alone is plenty to celebrate, but he didn’t stop there. While the founding goals for Like.com and Andale were to build businesses that fulfilled customer needs while building a product that would be interesting for larger companies from a technology standpoint,  he founded HealthIQ as his life’s work – a stand alone entity that he would lead for the rest of his professional career. That perspective and attitude shift made him make a lot of decisions differently. “It’s a different lens and it’s allowed me to make decisions that are more focused on the long term – much better for the long term,” he says. 

Lesson #1: Continue to Reinvent how you Build Culture

Shah would have never told you this had you asked him before, but he 100% believes the way you demonstrate and build culture has to be reinvented again and again and again. “Our cultural tenets haven’t changed, but how we build and drive that culture has changed significantly. In the early days of HealthIQ, we had a lot of things we did that were AWESOME in building culture and camaraderie. But those things were done on a concrete level – being together and having focused moments of celebration. In our daily standups, everyone in the company, regardless of position, would share something they accomplished the day before. With 50 people, you could go around the room in 30 minutes, everyone had time to share and it was fantastic,” he says.  

When they moved to a second office, the excitement and enthusiasm for accomplishments just didn’t come across. So they had to reinvent themselves, from onboarding to celebrating birthdays to celebrating company wins. As they scaled, the things that previously had an enormous, positive impact on the culture weren’t viable any more. 

Shah continues, “Not realizing how hard it is to keep those traditions going and how important they are to the culture was one of our biggest challenges. Slack emojis don’t cut it compared to an entire room of people clapping for you.” 

The important foundation of HealthIQ’s culture is they consistently celebrate the achievements of 20+ individuals at each week’s standup.  “Some people feel that if you recognize too many people, you devalue the recognition.  We don’t believe that.  Recognition is an infinite resource and can be used to power a celebration culture. Everyone’s greatest, secret fear is that they might toil in obscurity. We do our best to ensure that at HealthIQ, you will be recognized for that hard work,“ he says. It’s the same philosophy that is in the HealthIQ product: the company gives discounts to seniors that are taking care of their health.  The discounts are a form of celebration that you get in the form of savings each month.  

“Staying focused on positivity and celebration is incredibly powerful,” he says.

Celebration is a company-wide habit that Shah is constantly reinforcing.

Lesson #2: The Power of Optimism

The one question Shah is often asked that has a surprising answer, tying into their culture, is What is the best way to get promoted at HealthIQ? 

His answer: Be optimistic. 

“Engineering managers often want to paint themselves as the devil’s advocate, being the voice of reason in the room. There is definitely a value to that, but not necessarily from the engineering leader. Do you remember any of the world’s greatest leaders being that way? Martin Luther King, Jr. was incredibly inspiring, as was Gandhi. At no point was Gandhi like, ‘I know we’re striving for independence, but I just want to keep expectations low: Underpromise, overdeliver, just in case this doesn’t work out. The Brits are pretty powerful. I just want to make sure everyone knows what we can realistically achieve.’ Of course not! No one is going to follow that person. That person has utility in the world, but you’re never going to follow them,” says Shah. 

He continues, “The true leaders are the optimists. Can they be over optimistic? Sure. But the positivity that comes from that is a very, very powerful idea. It’s a very powerful leadership metaphor. Celebration combined with optimism makes HealthIQ tick from a culture perspective. Our definition of our culture is our definition of what we want from our leaders. We want those same things from everyone that wants to someday be an organizational leader too.”

Lesson #3: Be Close to the Sheet Metal     

Really knowing your business is paramount to current and future success. “We always say, ‘Be close to the sheet metal.’ Know your numbers. Live in them each day. Everyone from our executive team on down that doesn’t know their numbers just isn’t going to be a great fit at HealthIQ. There is greatness in detail, so we look for that greatness in detail as well,” says Shah.  

Lesson #4: Celebrate Engineering Success 

With marketing and sales, celebrating wins is somewhat obvious because you have a win with every dollar that comes in the door. With a focus on celebration, HealthIQ has created a celebration culture in Engineering as well. How, you ask? By naming each product by the Engineer that built it. “We built an in-house CRM and an engineer named Tom is the one who owned the project, so our CRM is called TRM, which stands for Tom’s CRM. We have other products that our engineers have named, whether it’s named after them, their kids, or something that’s important to them. They get naming rights. What’s neat about it is it drives ownership and it’s a fascinating celebration tool. The permanence and legacy there is powerful. Even if they leave the company, forever more their imprint is on the company. The same way salespeople have a giant award board on a wall that’s permanently celebrating their success, we want our engineers to know they came, they saw, they contributed and they made HealthIQ better because of their efforts and commitment. And we haven’t forgotten what you did here. We all want permanence and to know we contributed to something great,” he says.  

Lesson #5: Maintain a High Bar with Hiring

HealthIQ has always had a focused, high bar when hiring, but there have been critical lessons learned as they have scaled over the past year. “With all the challenges brought about by Covid, it did present a new opportunity for us to begin recruiting and hiring all over the country. That has definitely increased the level of talent we’ve been able to bring to our team. Before, we were limited to how many candidates had the skills we needed in both the Bay and in San Diego (or were willing to move to either area).  Being able to hire everywhere has been one of our keys to success,” says Shah.  

The other thing they’ve realized is that there is a lot more value as the company gets bigger and bigger for employees that have done that exact job somewhere else. He continues, “The experience level matters immensely. In the early days of a company, you’re trying to figure out a new formula for a new thing and honestly, you just need the largest amount of intellectual horsepower that you can possibly get to try and solve it. Once you get the formula down, however, you need people that are great operators who know the role and have done it before. It’s ok if they developed a slightly different process somewhere else but have done something close to the role you need.” 

“Even if it’s data mining or a data analysis skill set, having worked with a data set like our set has its own benefits. You know the flaws in the data set, the issues you need to normalize for, etc. There is deep knowledge that is a key to success, so we’ve definitely gone deeper in experience and broader across the country as we’ve continued to build our team,” says Shah.  

Lesson #6: Focus on Data 

At the core, HealthIQ is a data science company. They use Big Data to segment out the health conscious in society and give them lower rates on insurance. “There are lots of companies that have data science in their product. Our product IS data science. It’s digital data science wrapped in an insurance contract and the data drives the product. Not only that, the data can unravel the product. If runner’s don’t end up lower risk, we’re in  trouble because we’re giving them a discount,” he says.  

“The most important factor of the data scientists that we hire is that analysis is messy. A lot of people just want to run a clean algorithm on a bunch of data and they hit a button and are done. Our best data scientists are the ones that have done that but also bring a lot of creativity and understand how clean the data really needs to be. Pruning it, cleaning it, getting right. Making sure every definition is what you thought it was is one of the keys to great data science. It’s not using the fanciest algorithm out there because if you use it on garbage in data, you just get garbage out and it just doesn’t work,” says Shah.  

Lesson #7: The Urgency / Patience paradox

Shah has an interesting take on patience, and he believes this paradox might make or break your company as you scale. “There is a weird paradox with patience as you build your business. You need to be urgent building your business every day, but you need to be patient building your business every year. Those two things are very hard to balance. Every day, you want to get everything done, from shipping the product, to pushing cycles faster so you can learn more and more from each one of them. You want to be really urgent on how you handle those things on a daily basis. But on the other hand, you have people that come to a company and they won’t realize the importance of building value over time. It takes a long time to build value and in fast growing companies, people don’t realize how critical it is. When a company is doubling every year, that last year, it’s added as much value as all of the prior years added together. The longer you stay, the more of that doubling you get to capture and I think that people don’t realize that building great things takes time,” he says. 

Growing companies have challenges. Patience to finish through those challenges is key. Shah continues, “The people that are most rewarded are those that stuck around after tough challenges, picked up the pieces and figured out the next step. The bumps in the road aren’t as bad as you think. It takes A LOT to make a company stumble – TRULY stumble and fall – so you just need to persevere. All of life’s rewards go to who I call ‘The Finishers.’ Think about how many kids started piano lessons and how many finished and actually became concert pianists. The same thing for tennis, etc. The finishers are the ones that get a lot of rewards in life. Most people are starters and not finishers, and there is a unique patience needed to be a finisher.”

Final lesson: Act like an Owner 

One intriguing perspective that Shah focused on is that when a company is smaller, it’s easy to act as an owner. Everyone has their sleeves rolled up and has some built in ownership that is organic because you fail without it. As you scale, this becomes more difficult simply because you have bigger teams around you. At HealthIQ, acting like an owner is not only encouraged, but it gets rewarded. “Recently, we identified 20 people out of our close to 500 employees that really act like owners, outside of the exec team. We gave them all a pretty special compensation change in the form of stock. They all previously had stock, so were literally owners, but we wanted to make them more of an owner because they truly acted like owners.  The psychology that this is your company and you’ll do whatever it takes to succeed is important to reward and cultivate. We wanted to reward that as we have scaled up because it’s difficult to do, the larger you get. Rewarding leaders that are optimistic, have the celebration mentality and execute at a highly detailed level is important. Those people can do really great at HealthIQ,” he says. 

Want to connect with Munjal Shah directly to learn more about HealthIQ? Please feel free to email him at [email protected] !

Munjal Shah is the co-founder and CEO of Health IQ. Health IQ uses science and big data to provide special rate insurance for health conscious seniors. Munjal is a serial entrepreneur that has built many companies in the past. Prior to Health IQ, Munjal was co-founder & CEO of Like.com (computer vision/machine learning company sold to Google) & co-founder & CEO of Andale (eventually sold to Alibaba). Munjal has a Masters in CS from Stanford and a Bachelors in CS from UCSD.

In addition to his operating roles, Munjal is an advisor/investor in technology and digital health related companies including: 

Rocketfuel (IPO), Meebo (sold to Google), Swell (Sold to Apple), Blindsight (Sold to Amazon), Kabam (Sold to NetMarble Games), TaskRabbit (Sold to IKEA), Gyft (sold to First Data), Refresh (Sold to LinkedIn), Pubmatic (IPO), ThirdLove, Alation, Benetic, Beagle, Scopely, Step Mobile, Turing, Blindsight, InterAxon, PatientPing, Retrace.AI, Canvas Medical, Counsyl (Sold to Myriad Genetics), LabDoor, Lift Labs (Sold to Google), Honor Health, Wildflower Health, Quantiome and more.

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