Inclusion in Meetings: Kieran Snyder On In-Person vs. Remote Dynamics 6 | 35

Episode at a Glance: Inclusion in Meetings  

The episode offers practical tips and takeaways for leaders to enhance meeting engagement and navigate the evolving landscape of workplace communication.

• As meeting size increases, participation rates decrease, and this effect is more pronounced in remote meetings.
• Women’s participation rates in meetings are significantly lower than men’s, especially in larger meetings.
• Women’s ideas are often taken without credit, and men are more likely to take credit for ideas.
• Idea spotlighting, where participants repeat and credit others’ ideas, can promote inclusion in meetings. Both men and women are more likely to say ‘I told you so’ to people of their own gender.
• Software engineers say ‘I told you so’ seven times more often than everyone else.
• The size of meetings can impact participation, with a tipping point where it becomes difficult for everyone to contribute.
• Structured agendas can make a difference in meeting dynamics.
• Remote work offers benefits in terms of diversity, but clear communication and inclusive practices are essential.

The TLDR Radical Candor Podcast Transcript

[00:00:07] Amy Sandler: I’m Amy Sandler. And today we are really excited to welcome Kieran Snyder to the podcast. Kieran is founder of nerd processor, a research and consulting firm with a pretty fabulous name, Chief Scientist Emeritus and cofounder of Textio. Kieran is a long time software product leader, accomplished data writer, leadership coach, recovering academic with a PhD in linguistics. I can’t even say that. A PhD in linguistics and cognitive science from the University of Pennsylvania. 

[00:00:41] And today we’re going to be talking about with Kieran an experiment that you did to determine the age old or at least COVID old question, are in-person or remote meetings more inclusive?

[00:00:55] So welcome Kieran. 

[00:00:58] Kieran Snyder: Thank you. I’m so excited. Kim, this is our first time chatting in a while. And this is, I’m so excited to be talking about all the meetings stuff today. Happy to be here. 

[00:01:06] Kim Scott: I’m always thrilled to chat with you. I became aware of you, Kieran, before I met, long before I met you. I was the, uh, coaching at Twitter. And your article about the abrasive trap that women fall into in, uh, made the rounds. It was the longest email thread at Twitter ever. Internal email thread. It really, it struck a nerve for me and for just about everyone else there. Um, and, uh, so admire what you do with Textio, uh, what you created there. And love what’s coming out of nerd processor. So, um, great admirer of your work. 

[00:01:53] Kieran Snyder: Thank you. That means so much, Kim, coming from you, because it is all mutual. Um, I was thinking about how we first met, and I couldn’t remember. But I remember when the two of us were having a conversation last year with Aileen Lee. She took credit for having introduced us. 

[00:02:14] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:02:14] Kieran Snyder: So I’m willing to give her credit. 

[00:02:15] Kim Scott: Okay. Let’s give her credit. 

[00:02:16] Kieran Snyder: Let’s think that’s really how it happened. 

[00:02:19] Kim Scott: It probably did at, uh, one of her parties. Uh, I remember, sending you a fangirl email at some point and she probably did, she probably gave me your email address. So there you go. 

[00:02:34] Kieran Snyder: History was made. 

[00:02:35] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:02:36] Amy Sandler: Well, I love the backstory. Before we get into meetings, Kim, I feel like I would be remiss if I didn’t ask because it’s on my mind and I suspect some of our listeners. Kieran, can you describe this abrasive trap of which Kim speaks that inspired such a lengthy email thread? 

[00:02:52] Kieran Snyder: Well, you know, before I co founded Textio, which is a software company, right? That is really all about helping people write fair feedback in various workplace settings. Um, I’ve been looking at workplace communication on the research front for a long time. I was a software person for a really long time at Microsoft and a little bit at Amazon. And I got really interested in the ways that, uh, women were judged differently than men. As far as I could tell anecdotally for how they communicated at work.

[00:03:32] Um, and because my training is really in empirical linguistics, instead of just looking at the anecdote, I wanted to collect some data to get beyond that. And so in 2014, shortly before, uh, we started Textio, I collected a bunch of performance reviews from strangers on the internet. Which is still miraculous to me that hundreds of people were willing to send me their performance reviews.

[00:03:57] But I was betting at the time that the only people who would be willing to do that would be high performers. The people who were willing to share their review and that was true. The people who shared their reviews were quite positive in their reviews. And I wanted to look at the differences between how high performing women were described compared to the rest of the organization. Um, and the abrasiveness trap was the title of the article in Fortune that I wrote when I unveiled the findings. Because women were significantly more likely to be described as abrasive, among other things.

[00:04:30] Um, I think when I went back and looked at that data recently, we just, Textio just published our annual feedback research. That’s the ten year anniversary of that very first abrasiveness trap piece. And at the time, we found that eighty-eight percent of those high performing women were receiving feedback about their personality rather than their work. Um, good, bad, ugly. Whereas only twelve percent of the high performing men were. Um, so that really started a decade of research on the topic. 

[00:05:02] Kim Scott: Yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s, and basically the idea is that a woman is told she can’t be promoted or she’s getting a low rating because she’s too abrasive. Whereas a man is like aggressive, but he’s gotta be to get the job done. Is that basically it? 

[00:05:17] Kieran Snyder: Exactly. Exactly. 

[00:05:19] Kim Scott: Maybe not exactly with that tone of voice, but. 

[00:05:21] Kieran Snyder: Approximately though, 

[00:05:22] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:05:22] Kieran Snyder: With that tone of voice, that tone of voice and hearing it a lot is what led me to get real data about the problem. 

[00:05:27] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:05:28] Amy Sandler: And if I’m hearing you, Kieran, I mean, it really reinforces what we do at Radical Candor, which is wanting our feedback to be framed around observable behavior or actual work product rather than about personality. Is that sort of the guidance that comes out of the data from your perspective, that it’s actionable feedback rather than personality based? 

[00:05:49] Kieran Snyder: Yes. I feel like the data philosophically aligns beautifully with the Radical Candor framework. That’s why I’ve always been a fan of the work that you all do at Radical Candor. Um, because most people, when push comes to shove, give feedback in alignment with their decades of lived experience and the bias that that has created. 

[00:06:10] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:06:10] Kieran Snyder: You know, over time, rather than with what we might call best practices. And so you, this is never ending education for people. I think it’s software for people, um, you know, there’s so much work to be done because, whatever tools we create, we are combating literally people’s entire lives of lived experience. And what that has created and how we like to talk about women in the workplace.

[00:06:33] I will say, like, one of the things really on my mind right now this year, with all the research I’ve done this year. I have collected so much data that I wasn’t looking for showing the ways that women aren’t necessarily better than men are when they label women at work. That women sometimes do undermine women. And I’m really struggling with how to present all that data. 

[00:06:56] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:06:56] Kieran Snyder: Because I don’t want to present that data in a way that is itself misogynist or undermining of women at work. But the data is there. We all have stuff to learn. 

[00:07:04] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, women can be just as, as sexist towards each other as men are, unfortunately.

[00:07:11] Kieran Snyder: For sure. And true across races, across age groups, across cultures. Um, so there’s so much to it. It’s a lifetime of research though. Never boring. 

[00:07:19] Kim Scott: And I think also part of the issue is not necessarily gender, but power, right? 

[00:07:26] Kieran Snyder: Yeah. 

[00:07:27] Kim Scott: Uh, and part of the issue is that women often have less power than men. And so they don’t always fall into the problems that one has when one has too much power. Like you had some other research that was very interesting that the people who interrupt the most often are not men, but women with power. 

[00:07:48] Kieran Snyder: Yeah, actually I’m really glad you brought that up. I think that’s a, there’s a super point. Um, around the same time I published some research on workplace interruptions in meetings and found exactly that, that, um, women were more interrupted, uh, by men and women than anybody else. And of course, uh, less senior people were interrupted by more senior people. But the biggest interrupters of all tended to be the most senior women. 

[00:08:14] I actually refreshed some of that research this year, I collected a huge new corpus. I now have eleven hundred hours of recorded meetings across more than a hundred and fifty organizations. Um, and I looked specifically at hybrid meetings in this case, ’cause I wanted to see, you know, that the sort of, uh, I’ll call it like the toxic setting where everybody’s in the room except one person who happens to be the one kind of stuck, stuck virtual. 

[00:08:39] Kim Scott: Yes, yeah. 

[00:08:39] Kieran Snyder: And in that setting, the only person, regardless of gender, regardless of race, the only person who can get a word in when they are remote is the boss. If the person on the phone is the boss, they can interrupt, they can cut in, um, and otherwise nobody is able to. It’s like really, really striking data. So power does end up being such a, an important factor in all of this. 

[00:09:03] Kim Scott: So, I want to double click on that. And Amy, it looked like you had a thought too, so. Lest I interrupt you. 

[00:09:09] Amy Sandler: No, well, that was, you were in the same, I have so many thoughts, but Kim, I just, since I know we’ve got all this empirical research from Kieran. Just, I thought I would ask you as a self defined inveterate interrupter. Like, what, from your perspective, like, what is underneath your, interrupting from your own experience.

[00:09:27] Kim Scott: Well, it’s obviously because I’m so powerful. Um, uh, I don’t, I mean, I did not get told that I interrupted earlier in my career. I got told later in my career after I did, in fact, have more authority in the room. And I’ve rarely been told by my boss that I interrupt them. I’ve been told by employees that I interrupt them.

[00:09:56] So, and this is something that is really, it’s so hard to learn, I think, because I really, I think of myself as a person who tries to include others and I think of myself as a good listener and not a bully and yet it’s so easy to make all those mistakes when you have a little bit of power in the situation. Power corrupts, even the best of us. 

[00:10:23] Amy Sandler: I, first of all, I really appreciate you saying that I think it’s really helpful. I also wonder, at least my side of when I experienced sometimes if you’re interrupting or moving on to a point. It is because as the leader in certain meetings I might be in, you want to get stuff done. Like you want to get to an outcome. And so there’s that like efficiency. And I, from my perspective, I feel like the interrupting is not always about power. It may be about your desire to get to an outcome more efficiently. You know, it’s not about power so much as like wanting to get to a decision or an outcome.

[00:11:00] Kim Scott: Yes. I think that’s right. But I also have that feeling when I’m the least powerful person in the room, but I’m less likely,

[00:11:07] Amy Sandler: You’re less likely to act on it. 

[00:11:09] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:11] Kieran Snyder: I’m a big time interrupter and have been forever. And unlike Kim, I have heard this my entire career. Uh, and in my entire personal life and like, you know, let’s go, go way back. And I come from a family of nonstop interrupters. It’s just our internal family culture, it’s how we communicate. And we don’t take interruptions as annoying, most of the time, until I had a kid who hates being interrupted. Hates it, hates it, hates it. And anytime I interrupt her doing my like, yes and sort of building, she’ll stop.

[00:11:44] She’ll be like, okay, do you think I could go now? You’re right. Um, right? But it, I think a lot of it is, um, we don’t think of it as power and, you know, Amy, you called it maybe efficiency. Um, but the kind of person who feels frustrated by quote, unquote, inefficient conversation often has jumped to a conclusion about where the conversation is supposed to end up. And that is a kind of power, right? That is, in fact, like, yeah, I’ve already done the work. I’ve thought through all of this. Let’s just, I can save us all a lot of time here. Let me just say the thing. Um, and that is inherently like a power move, right? And of course, it’s not always the most open minded move or the most collaborative move. It’s, you know, open mindedness is inefficient. It doesn’t mean that it’s the wrong thing to do. So it’s tricky. 

[00:12:38] Kim Scott: Yeah. It’s so interesting, Kieran, because I did not come from a family of interrupters. You know, I grew up, because I can’t blame my family dynamic. Like I, I grew up as a woman in this or as a girl in the South. And I was really taught never to interrupt, like, uh, so I think I’m afraid I learned it later, probably learned it at business school. Where if you didn’t interrupt, you’d get a bad grade. And I was very focused on getting good grades. 

[00:13:11] Kieran Snyder: Well, my data shows that your career advanced probably partly because you learned to do that, right? I mean, when you see a pattern where the most senior women in the room are the biggest interrupters of all. It’s not necessarily a positive thing, but it’s like the women who are able to punch through the numerous glass ceilings that they encounter along the way are often those who statistically have learned to interrupt. Because otherwise you may not get your point heard, right? 

[00:13:40] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:13:40] Kieran Snyder: If you wait your turn, you may not get one. And so that makes it really hard to wait your turn if you want a turn. 

[00:13:47] Kim Scott: Yes. I think as a woman, you have to interrupt the interruption. You know, there’s a cartoon in Radical Respect. Don’t interrupt me while I’m interrupting you, you know, and, uh, a man saying to a woman in a bullhorn.

[00:14:03] And, I think you do, as you move forward in your career, have to learn how to interrupt the interruptions. And it’s easier, by the way, to learn how to do that when you have people who work for you, who have less power than you. Who still interrupt you. And, you know, so who knows? I mean, we could go on endlessly about why this happens and how it emerges, but it’s really interesting.

[00:14:27] Amy Sandler: It is really interesting. I will say, and then I want to move on to inclusive meetings. Just, you know, I think one of the things Kim and I have talked a lot about is that we do have very different styles and even Kim in your book about, loud listening versus quiet listening. And my tendency is really more about asking questions and leaving space for listening. And I get very frustrated if I feel interrupted, um, and Kim has a different style. And so we’ve had to even just navigate that amongst ourselves. Um, so in my mind, sometimes it’s even like less about gender and more about styles of communication that are more or less accepted in the workplace of like what a strong communication presence, um, looks like.

[00:15:08] First of all, we can agree that as sort of disunited, ununited as we might be, there’s one thing that can rally everyone together. And that is like a shared loathing for meetings. Do you think that’s like an accurate statement? We all seem to, you know, hate meetings. Um, and you look a lot at meetings and one of your experiments was trying to explore which type of meeting, remote or in person led to more inclusion. You had mentioned hybrid, but I don’t, was that not part of this study? Um, it was just looking at two types of meetings?

[00:15:38] Kieran Snyder: Yeah. In this case, I really tried to get to a controlled apples to apples data set. So I looked at a hundred hours of everybody in the same room meetings and a hundred hours of everybody remote meetings. In those remote settings, I only chose meetings where all cameras were on. Um, which, by the way, I’m certain changes participation rates, although I haven’t written anything about that yet. That the intuition there, um, is super backed by the data that I’ve looked at. Which is that cameras off, we tend to participate less. Um, but I wanted really just to kind of control that. 

[00:16:15] And by the way, I did start out collecting all this meeting data specifically to revisit the interruptions research. And then of course, when you have eleven hundred hours of meeting data, it’s a trove of fun. It’s like a research playground. So I got really interested in this, um, you know, remote versus in person setting cause of course everybody’s interested in it. Um, we’re all workers right now who have worked in a variety of settings. Um, when I was a CEO pre pandemic of Textio. We had religion around co location, like, like Jensen, who’s Textio’s current CEO. And I really, really believed that co location helped to create, um, organic moments of communication, collaboration. Um, I still think that’s true. 

[00:17:02] Kim Scott: By co location, you mean in person? 

[00:17:04] Kieran Snyder: Everybody in person in the same space. Um, if not every minute of every day, then like a lot of the time. Um, we were a tech company, so we were never every minute of every day. 

[00:17:14] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:17:15] Kieran Snyder: Um, you know, people have some flexibility. Um, but then obviously with the pandemic, we like many organizations, went distributed literally overnight. And we felt like we didn’t lose too much productivity and my strong feeling at that time was like, okay, I get the benefits of in person, I get the benefits of remote. Not so sure about this hybrid thing because it feels then like you create a weird inequity situation where some people are always in the room and some people are not. So anyway, I got really interested in it and it’s really fun to not be the CEO this year. So I can just look at the data and I don’t have to convince an organization of people to do something or other. I can just be like, all right, here y’all business leaders. Take the data. Do what you will. But yeah, that’s how I got started on this. 

[00:18:02] Amy Sandler: Cool. 

[00:18:02] Kim Scott: And what’d you find? 

[00:18:03] Amy Sandler: Yeah. Tell us what are some of the highlights. 

[00:18:06] Kieran Snyder: Well, this was not, um, some of it was intuitive, some of it was not intuitive. So I looked at meetings, uh, that had between two and ten participants. Because I wanted to not just look at in person versus remote. But I suspected and again, not surprising that meeting size would make a difference too.

[00:18:27] So in a two person meeting, guess what? Whatever the setting is, a hundred percent of people participate because it’s not, someone’s just monologuing. And by the way, I should say participation for me had to be meaningful. So if you just popped into a meeting and said, hey, how was your weekend before the meeting started? That did not count as participation for me. It had to be some substantive contribution to the meeting agenda. Um, so just basic pleasantries, uh, did not count. 

[00:18:56] So, um, no surprise. I found overall participation rates went down as meetings got larger. That’s what I expected to find that when you have, you know, nine or ten people in the room, virtual or in person, um, you start, you know, seeing communication or participation rates, uh, drop off.

[00:19:16] Kim Scott: So in other words, let me just make sure I understand that. So in other words, three percent of the people in a ten person meeting do eighty percent of the talking and the rest are listening. 

[00:19:26] Kieran Snyder: That’s the idea. 

[00:19:27] Kim Scott: Or sitting there not listening as the case may be. 

[00:19:29] Kieran Snyder: Yeah, I mean, by the way, of course, 

[00:19:31] Kim Scott: Sitting there wondering why the hell they’re there.

[00:19:33] Kieran Snyder: I do think there’s a whole other level that I didn’t try to code, which is there are people who are present without speaking, and there are people who are distracted and not really present. They’re present in body only, and I didn’t try to disaggregate that here. Um, but, even in this, um, this sort of controlled place, if you think of like a nine or ten person meeting. By the time the in person meeting has this many attendees, only fifty-five percent of them are participating.

[00:20:06] So you already, even in person, see nearly half the group typically drop off. But in a remote meeting, it’s only a third of people participating. 

[00:20:14] Kim Scott: Wow. 

[00:20:15] Kieran Snyder: So the drop off is steeper in the all remote setting than it was, you know, with the all in person setting. And the gap gets wider as the meeting gets larger. So two people. 

[00:20:27] Amy Sandler: What do you think? What do you think is happening there, Kieran, in terms of like the engagement more in person versus remote with the larger meeting? 

[00:20:36] Kieran Snyder: I think the barrier to participate can feel higher in a remote meeting. Especially the longer you’ve been quiet because you have to physically come off mute. Let’s go back to that data point I just shared about who can interrupt in a hybrid setting. And we apply a little of that here. It maybe feels already in an in person meeting, a little hard to cut in when there’s ten people and you haven’t talked much. But in a remote setting, when you have two or three people going back and forth, the barrier to entry feels pretty high.

[00:21:10] Um, and the longer you’ve been quiet, the more disruptive it might feel to you to put your voice forward. I’m going to come off mute. I’m going to say something now after forty-two minutes of not. Um, of course we know like from, you know, Susan Cain’s research and more that when people do that, actually, they’re more likely to get listened to because when quiet people speak up, it’s like, oh, this person now has really something important to say.

[00:21:35] Um, but I do think that feels, um, can feel a little bit intimidating. But the thing that struck me the most, because I always look at this in terms of demographics too, um, is that this sort of chilling effect of these remote meetings was even worse for women’s participation then it was for men’s participation.

[00:22:00] I didn’t have quite enough data to look at non binary people in this data set. So I put that aside. Race, by the way, did not matter to my surprise. I did look at race, um, in this data set, I expected it would. Um, but this was really striking. So, um, and again, the bigger the meeting, the greater the impact on women’s participation rates, even compared to men. So when a meeting had, um, I think like four or five people, you only saw women participating, you know, five percent less than men on average. 

[00:22:33] Um, you know, they were still, you know, participating at a relatively even rates. But by the time, again, you get to like those nine or ten, you see women participating thirty to forty percent less than men. Um, and already remember men are participating less than they were. 

[00:22:50] Kim Scott: Yeah. So , less than in person. When you say less. Women in a Zoom meeting or a virtual meeting participate thirty to forty percent less in a meeting, that’s ten people. 

[00:23:05] Kieran Snyder: Yes, exactly. Exactly. So you get all these interesting compounding effects. Like the bigger the meeting, the lower participation rates. When our meeting is remote, you lower participation rates. And when those participants are women. By the way, even in an all women’s meeting. You see, 

[00:23:22] Kim Scott: Really? 

[00:23:23] Kieran Snyder: Yeah, that’s a really interesting thing. ‘Cause I tried to control for different mixes of participants as well. Women’s participation rates still crater in the remote setting. 

[00:23:33] Kim Scott: Could you control for power? 

[00:23:36] Kieran Snyder: I did have some data about org hierarchy, which I, and an org hierarchy does make some difference in this data. But not enough to, um, fully confound the finding about gender. So. Yeah.

[00:23:55] Amy Sandler: Kieran, it’s really interesting because, you know, for us as Radical Candor, having shifted from doing all these events in person and then transitioning to a lot of, you know, Zoom workshops and keynotes and then now this mix of some are in person. One of the things that I’ve observed is really enjoying, say in a Zoom workshop, that you can have chat or use polls.

[00:24:23] So even though you’re missing out on like the in person connectivity, there’s kind of this other seemingly, at least from my experience, like sort of less friction way for people to engage like through chat rather than speaking. And so I don’t know in your research, were you able to look at that or is it really just people speaking versus not speaking in a virtual setting?

[00:24:45] Kieran Snyder: Yeah, it’s a really astute observation about chat. I haven’t analyzed that yet. I do have the data and it’s on my research, it’s on my research list. Um, and I, like, I’m curious if you see the offset, you know, if women’s participation rates decline, are they more likely to be using chat more often? Or do you see chat used more often as the meeting size gets larger? Which, anecdotally, I think you do. 

[00:25:11] Amy Sandler: Yeah. 

[00:25:11] Kieran Snyder: Um, the other thing I’ll note that complicates us just a little, is I have found a lot of organizations have, if not rules, then I’ll say strong norms and guidelines about the use of chat in their virtual meetings. So there are organizations that embrace it and welcome it as a way to make sure you get your ideas without actually interrupting the person who’s speaking.

[00:25:34] But I’ve also worked with organizations that really frown on it. Because it can be distracting from being present in the main conversation. If people are focused on typing and reading, it’s harder for them to listen to what’s being said. So I have to figure out how to disaggregate the org norms, um, ’cause I think that’s going to be a factor here. But it’s a great observation.

[00:25:58] Amy Sandler: Yeah. I’m just, I mean, just from my own experience. So I’ll be super curious to see that. The other thing that was popping up as you were sharing the data was around this idea of, um, when we’re in person, um, you know, there’s, it’s sort of harder to be doing other stuff or to be distracted. So it’s your point of knowing is somebody not saying anything in present or does the virtual meeting enable people. I’ve got so many meetings and now this is my chance to be doing the work. It sounded like you, these meetings were required to be cameras on. Did I hear that correctly? 

[00:26:33] Kieran Snyder: I don’t know if they were required to be cameras on, but I selected meetings that had all participants with cameras on. So I’m not sure of the backstory in each individual meeting, if it was like a mandate or just the way they work.

[00:26:46] Kim Scott: I wonder if part of it, here’s a hypothesis, is that, like, so let’s assume that women are more likely to be interrupted when they try to participate than men. I think the data is pretty clear that that is, that that happens more often, both over Zoom and in person. I think that it’s a little bit harder to interrupt the interruption. On, like, let’s all try to interrupt each other right now. Like, it’s very, whereas if we’re in person 

[00:27:15] Amy Sandler: So what you’re saying, Kim, is that it’s hard to interrupt? 

[00:27:18] Kim Scott: Let’s turn all these squares purple at the same time. Like, it’s a little harder to break in. Just technically, because there’s a tiny little bit of lag. I wonder to the extent to which the medium makes it a little harder or if there’s something else going on. Any thoughts on that? 

[00:27:38] Kieran Snyder: I think it’s possible, but can I give you a different but related data point?

[00:27:42] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:27:42] Kieran Snyder: Um, some, something else from the big meeting corpus of fun this year. Um, one of the other things I wanted to look at side by side with this was the phenomenon, I call it idea annexation.

[00:27:56] So this is where, you know, maybe we’re having a conversation, Amy makes an observation, no one hears it, five minutes later, I say the same thing, and the whole group is like, whoa, I’ve never heard of that before. 

[00:28:10] Amy Sandler: Um, that’s never happened to me, Kieran. 

[00:28:16] Kieran Snyder: Well, I wanted to see who, and by the way, I think I will say there’s another pattern that is a little more virtuous that I also looked at in the data called idea spotlighting. Which is the conversation moves on. Five minutes later I say, hey, I think Amy made a really interesting point five minutes ago. Amy, would you mind repeating that? Because I think it’s really pertinent, right? 

[00:28:36] So I think there’s a couple of ways to grab a prior idea and resurface. One is more benevolent, um, than the other. And the one that’s not benevolent is usually not conscious, I’m sure, um, in most of the time. But the stereotype here is also that, you know, women are constantly having this done to them and men are constantly doing this.

[00:28:58] And when I looked, um, in the data, men and women were both more likely to take credit than they were to give it. So most of us are credit takers, um, not credit givers. Um, and in general, it is nearly always women’s ideas who are taken. But men are not necessarily taking them more than women are in the same room. 

[00:29:26] Kim Scott: Wow.

[00:29:26] Kieran Snyder: So, um, I think when I mean, let me see if I can, uh, I can pull up the data. So when, uh, a man is repeating a woman’s ideas, he’s giving the woman credit thirteen percent of the time. Um, when a woman is repeating a woman’s ideas, she’s giving the woman credit twenty-nine percent of the time. So it is more and it is significantly more, but it’s not a lot.

[00:29:48] Kim Scott: Yeah, it’s both. Yeah, it’s bad. 

[00:29:50] Kieran Snyder: And so I mentioned this because Kim, going back to your question, is it, is there something about the difficulty of cutting in? Um, I think when you have a pattern like this. And by the way, this, these, this data applied across meeting settings. Um, you know, the credit taking, when you cut in, are you even likely to be heard?

[00:30:09] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:30:10] Kieran Snyder: Right? 

[00:30:11] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:30:11] Kieran Snyder: And so that, if the answer is you’re not likely to be heard, the effort of cutting in starts feeling like the trade off’s just not worth it. 

[00:30:18] Kim Scott: The ROI is not good. 

[00:30:20] Kieran Snyder: Exactly. 

[00:30:21] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:30:21] Kieran Snyder: Exactly. 

[00:30:22] Kim Scott: So interesting. 

[00:30:23] Amy Sandler: And just to amplify that one, Kieran, that you were talking about that there could be an ally piece of this of spotlighting, oh, well, as Kieran mentioned, um, and you know, when people repeat back what they said, that’s a way to amplify it.

[00:30:36] Kim, I’m thinking of, I think it was your conversation with Matt Abrahams of Think Fast, Talk Smart. Um, where one of the ways that we can engage, especially if we’re maybe more introverted is repeating back what we heard. And maybe that’s an opportunity to amplify, oh, Kim, like you said this or that.

[00:30:52] So I’m curious from both of your perspectives from an inclusion, um, piece of it. Would that be a tip that people would want to walk away from this podcast with of idea spotlighting. Is that something that would be helpful for people to do in meetings? 

[00:31:08] Kieran Snyder: I think yes. 

[00:31:09] Amy Sandler: Kim? Kieran? 

[00:31:10] Kieran Snyder: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. It counts on you really being a good enough listener that you notice the thing that other people aren’t crediting. Um, but I do think that’s a wonderful act of allyship because it’s you using your relatively louder voice to give credit to somebody who is having a tough time being heard in the meeting.

[00:31:31] Kim Scott: It’s also good for you. I mean, it’s good for other people. But it’s, I mean, that’s often a way that I try to not interrupt, is I try to focus on listening, and then midway through the meeting, summarizing where I think we are. And maybe I have something to add, or maybe I don’t. But I try to not jump right in. I mean, I’ve already failed in this conversation. But I try not to. I try. 

[00:31:57] Anyway, uh, yes, that was advice given to me by one of my bosses before I went to business school. He said, listen for the first half, at least, of the class, don’t talk too soon. listen and then summarize what, where the conversation is going and then maybe try to turn it in a different direction if you have an idea that adds to the conversation.

[00:32:22] Kieran Snyder: One other data point I’ll share because it’s all the stuff is so interrelated. One of the other things I looked at is who says, I told you so in meetings. And there’s, by the way, lots of ways to say I told you so. 

[00:32:33] Amy Sandler: Is that per my last email, like I told you so, or is that like, 

[00:32:37] Kieran Snyder: Yeah, like just like I predicted, just as I, you know, I was right. I told you this would happen. I already pointed this out. And there’s a lot of ways to say this. But this data, I think of all the meeting data for me was the most interesting, um, this year and a little bit surprising. Um, both men and women we’re more likely to say, I told you so to people of their own gender. Um, so I expected from all this other data that everybody would be saying, I told you so to women. But, uh, that did not turn out to be the case in the dataset. So, um, 

[00:33:13] Amy Sandler: Interesting. 

[00:33:13] Kieran Snyder: When women are saying, I told you so, eighty-seven percent of the time, uh, it is to other women. Um, when men are saying, I told you so, seventy-three percent of the time it’s to other men. 

[00:33:25] Kim Scott: Wow.

[00:33:26] Kieran Snyder: So, so again, it’s a little less strong of an effect around gender for the men than the women but there’s clearly an effect. Um, and by the way, we say this so often in meetings, like this comes up so often. Um, when I looked at the core data, this was coming up several times per hour from the collective, um, 

[00:33:46] Kim Scott: I told you so was?

[00:33:48] Kieran Snyder: The equivalent. Yeah. Or a variety of, you know, similar expressions of like, yep, I said this, I knew this would happen. That’s what I said. 

[00:33:56] Kim Scott: So interesting. 

[00:33:56] Amy Sandler: Yeah. Well, and to me, like this, that piece alone is so fascinating to me, Kieran, because I’m just putting myself into that story and thinking like, the reasons why somebody might say it. Because, you know, somebody might be saying it because they’re back to that frustrated, like they’ve been saying this and nobody’s heard it and then finally like it’s become a topic. Or they could be saying it because they want the credit. And, you know, so, you know, I don’t know how you can measure sort of the motivations underneath that, or to Kim’s point about layering in the power. But anything popping up for you about like the why underneath the, I told you so.

[00:34:32] Kieran Snyder: Yeah. So unlike the other data in this data, I looked at some factors that did matter in addition to gender. Um, one of them was race, uh, and there was a difference and an effect here by race. Um, which is, uh, most notably white people and black people say, I told you so more than other races. Um, and East Asian people say, I told you so much less than other races, which suggests there’s some cultural component here to, you know, the norms around, around it being okay.

[00:35:06] But the most interesting thing in all of this data to me was that software engineers, I looked by role for this particular pattern, say, I told you so, by all races, all genders. Software engineers say I told you so seven times more often than everybody else. 

[00:35:25] Amy Sandler: I think we just found our clip from this podcast. 

[00:35:30] Kieran Snyder: It was really striking. Seven, seven and a half times. And I think, so Amy, going back to your motivations, when you listen to a lot of these cases. And I, you know, cross check this with many software engineers that are near and dear to me. 

[00:35:43] Kim Scott: We’re both married to software engineers, right? 

[00:35:46] Kieran Snyder: A lot of it isn’t about necessarily proving that I was right. By the way, I was a software engineer, so like, I, you know, I get this. 

[00:35:53] Kim Scott: You also were. 

[00:35:54] Kieran Snyder: Yeah. I know that of which I speak. Um, but a lot of it is about precision. Um, and wanting, and software engineers are also more likely to say, you told me so. Like. 

[00:36:08] Kim Scott: Okay. 

[00:36:09] Kieran Snyder: Just as you said. 

[00:36:09] Kim Scott: Well, maybe they’re more hypothesis, observation, conclusion. They’re testing. 

[00:36:14] Kieran Snyder: Exactly. 

[00:36:15] Kim Scott: The way they’re constantly testing a hypothesis. 

[00:36:17] Kieran Snyder: Yes.

[00:36:17] Kim Scott: And either the hypothesis was true or not true and that’s interesting. 

[00:36:22] Kieran Snyder: Yes, not seven and a half times more likely to say you told me so. But two and a half times more likely than everybody else. So, you know, but like, I think there is a real cultural component around I told you so, which is, am I grandstanding or am I really trying to, um, get to the bottom of how we got here so that we can learn from it, you know, for the future. And so I thought there were a lot of really interesting. I want to pull at the thread of this one a little more in the research, because I think there’s a lot here around culture. 

[00:36:51] Amy Sandler: That one is fascinating. 

[00:36:52] Kim Scott: Yeah. Totally interesting. This is such important research because there’s so much data that shows when everybody speaks roughly the same amount that you get a better outcome from a team, right?

[00:37:05] So it’s, so one idea for those of us who have a lot of virtual meetings who are not in per, who are not in person is using, there’s a report, I think, like in Otter.ai and most of the note taking, uh, apps that you can elevate that says what percentage of the time in the meeting you spoke?

[00:37:32] And I think it would be interesting to look at that more often. I’m going to try to start, I’m going to take an action to try to start looking at that more often. What percentage of time in a meeting did I speak. 

[00:37:47] Kieran Snyder: Yeah, I think that’s great. Um, a lot of the meeting tools now have that, um, have that encoded. But I, you know, Amy, I like what you said. If you were leaving with like one practical tip, the idea a spotlighting tip is going to capture a lot of, captures active listening. Because you can’t do that unless you’re actively listening. Um, it helps you build relationships with people who maybe will be, um, really appreciative that you’re able to help their voice, you know, cut through.

[00:38:18] If you’re surfacing ideas that otherwise aren’t getting heard, you’re probably getting to better business outcomes, right? To the point of, you actually want to hear all the ideas on the table. If you think people are worth having on your team, it’s probably worth hearing what they have to say. Uh, right? 

[00:38:32] Kim Scott: I used to joke when I was at Google that they hired the smartest people in the world and told them to sit down and shut up. That’s how it felt sometimes. 

[00:38:42] Amy Sandler: Well, Kieran, just to go back to that, um, like what’s, what I was curious about as I love this idea of like tips for the listeners. So one of Kim’s tips was around, you know, looking at how much I’m speaking or not speaking in a meeting. And especially if you’ve got some power, uh, to lay the minutes down, I guess is another way to put it. Uh, spot, idea spotlighting, Kieran, like you were just talking about. 

[00:39:06] And then for folks that are thinking about meeting planning. Because this is all in a context of people feeling overall, just how frustrated with the amount of meetings. You know, there’s data suggesting that seventy percent of meetings are preventing people completing their work. And, uh, we’ll put in the show notes that there’s a, uh, an article in the Harvard Business Review. Ninety-two percent of employees consider meetings costly and unproductive. So I’m just curious, like when you think about even, there’s something about that number of people in the meeting. Like it starts getting to nine and ten and we’re sort of less efficient.

[00:39:39] So I don’t know if you have any just guidance about meetings writ large and actually beyond just in person versus remote. Like, is there something about just size of meetings, or is that like a future area of research for you? 

[00:39:53] Kieran Snyder: I mean, there does seem to be, especially in the remote setting, there does seem to be a tipping point beyond which you, almost no matter what you do, you will not get broad participation. And there’s just, again, it’s something about the difficulty of cutting in. Once you get above five people, six people, it starts getting difficult. 

[00:40:12] Um, it’s just the interesting thing is what, you know, which demographics fall off fastest in that participation rate. But with anyone in the room, you do see that, that chilling effect. The other thing I haven’t talked about in this research, um, because I’m still kind of puzzling through it, is structured agendas do make a difference. 

[00:40:32] So, the more structured your agenda, if you’re taking responsibility as the meeting facilitator, you obviously have a really important leadership role to play in how participation works in your conversation. And more broadly, um, how participation works in your project and participating in a meeting is just one vector that people have for participating in a project, right?

[00:40:58] And so I do think there’s an element around meeting structure that can make a difference. Um, and the trick is what happens when the facilitator is not very good and you’re still in the meeting. What role can you play then to help? Right? Because I think we’ve all been in those meetings. 

[00:41:16] Like, it could be great, but the person leading it is struggling a little bit. How do you support you know, the group, uh, in that setting. Um, I like this, um, I use this metaphor sometimes, um, of captains and coaches. Like the manager of a project, a team, a meeting is sort of theoretically like the coach. Like they’re getting everyone into positions, they’re asking people for their contributions. You know, but there’s usually somebody in the group who’s also the captain, which is like a member of the team that holds a lot of credibility, influence. They often are a senior member of the team. 

[00:41:54] Um, I think in these sort of meeting settings, the captain can play as important a role as the coach in how the team shows up. So if you are the senior individual in a group, you get to play a really important role in making it safe for other people to contribute, um, which makes the team work better. And of course, only raises your own standing with the group. Right? Because who doesn’t want a senior colleague who makes it possible for everybody to be heard? That’s a really great thing. 

[00:42:23] Kim Scott: That’s a great, that’s a great tip. And if you’re leading the meeting, make sure that you identify that captain and ask them to play.

[00:42:31] Kieran Snyder: Yes. 

[00:42:31] Kim Scott: You know, that’s sharing the, then there’s a little check and balance. 

[00:42:35] Kieran Snyder: Right. And I think, I mean, you think about, I’m a sports person, not everyone’s a sports person. But I think the same thing exists in musical performance or in theater. It’s, you know, the, your composer and your virtuoso or your director and your actor, right? 

[00:42:48] The metaphors, um, exist in a bunch of different domains. But teams tend to work better when the titular head of the team and the senior influencer on the team get to be super tight, work together, share goals. And as the nominal leader of the team, you can make that happen if you share your power a little bit more explicitly sometimes.

[00:43:11] Kim Scott: Always good to lay that power down. 

[00:43:13] Kieran Snyder: Yeah. 

[00:43:14] Amy Sandler: So last question on my side, uh, Kieran, and then I’d love to hear what we haven’t talked about. If somebody is listening to this podcast and they’re thinking, okay, if I want to be inclusive and all things being equal, I could have an in person meeting of ten or a remote meeting of ten, does your data suggest conclusively like do the in person meeting? I mean, is that like, how, how strongly do you want people to walk away from this, uh, research in terms of not just meetings, but hiring and thinking about in person versus remote versus hybrid writ large? 

[00:43:48] Kieran Snyder: Well, this is the tricky part because hiring remotely will give you on average a more diverse group of people in your organization, right? So I think this is a place where the diversity data and the inclusion data do not point you in the same direction. 

[00:44:08] Which shows that there’s really no substitute for actual thoughtful leadership, um, right? Because if you are hiring a distributed team, you have a greater chance of hiring a diverse group of people, you can reach more markets, you can get people with more varied life circumstances. And like, that’s all to the good. It’s just not to the good if then your operating norms make it impossible for those people to participate, right? 

[00:44:33] So I wish I could tell you, Amy, like, yes, I’m coming out strong. By the way, this is why I’m glad I’m not the CEO right now, having to take a team through it. ‘Cause I can just look at the data, it’s way easier. Um, but I think it’s not so clear cut. I, where I ended up as a CEO here was continuing to hire a distributed team. But working pretty hard to bring people together in person at some reasonable cadence. Especially for higher stakes conversations and trying to help leaders in the organization, learn techniques of facilitation remotely, that would help at least label and circumvent some of these, not less than inclusive patterns. But no, you’re not going to hear me say in person or the highway, because there’s some downsides there too.

[00:45:25] Kim Scott: I think also there’s interesting data that at first seems like it’s contradictory, but it makes sense when you think about it. Uh, Project Include, uh, data shows that there’s more bias, prejudice, and bullying online than there is in person. 

[00:45:45] And, at the same time, best places to work has gathered a lot of data that shows that people who are underrepresented prefer remote work to in person.

[00:45:55] Now, why would you ever choose the medium where you’re going to experience more bias, prejudice and bullying? And I think the answer is, for me, I mean, this is not data, this is now Kim hypothesizing. But, uh, but for me anyway, like if I’m in my own space where I feel safe, even if I do experience the frustration of biased comments in a meeting, at least when the meeting’s over, I can shut my computer and scream. And, you know, which I cannot do in the office or whatever it is.

[00:46:29] I, there’s one time when I experienced some ridiculous, I don’t know whether it was bullying or bias or prejudice. But some bad, something bad going on masquerading as feedback. And I remember throwing my bike helmet against the window in the office and realizing it was time to quit. Uh, yeah, but like, it’s way easier, I think, to recover from those experiences if you’re in your own environment where you feel safe and at home.

[00:47:02] Kieran Snyder: The other element, if you look at some of the best places to work data, is that in person communities, tend to feel best if you’re with people like yourself. 

[00:47:14] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:47:14] Kieran Snyder: And so when most environments are more rather than less homogenous, most environments are more homogenous. Then the data about those environments are, it’s more likely to show a positive experience because you start off with, um, less opportunity for. Yeah, I guess difference, which, you know, has costs as well, right? Um, so I think there’s a, uh, all of this research is like an exercise in control and variable. 

[00:47:46] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:47:47] Kieran Snyder: And trying to make sure you can like disaggregate. And, but this is why there’s no one right way to lead a company, right? 

[00:47:53] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:47:53] Kieran Snyder: It’s, and I deeply believe, um, you know, Amy, to going back to your question about sort of, um, like measuring out, you know, between these modes and you throw hybrid in there as well, which is obviously where a lot of organizations are netting out these days. I think you can lead with your values as a leader and people will vote with their feet. 

[00:48:17] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:48:17] Kieran Snyder: Like they will choose the work environment that feels like it best aligns to their circumstances and values. And the most important thing you can do as a leader is be like, honest and clear about what your operating norms actually are.

[00:48:32] Because if you are not, if you trick people into joining your organization, because they’re so excited, they think there’s a lively in person culture and there isn’t. Or they think they can work remote five days and then it turns out they’re not, you’re not doing yourself any favors. You might, you might look like you’re hiring well, but those people will quit eventually. 

[00:48:49] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:48:49] Kieran Snyder: Um, sooner than later, probably. So the most important thing is be honest about your operating norms. Pick something that you’re optimizing for and just be open about it and let people be adults and choose where they want to work, you know. 

[00:49:02] Kim Scott: Well, Amy, one of the things I really, and I think that’s Kieran, yes, yes, I agree, uh, is to make it clear. And Amy, I wonder, I know we don’t, we’re running out of time. But I really admire the way that you conduct workshops. And I think you’ve learned a lot of tips and tricks about how to make sure everybody participates and is included. So do you want to share with people, if you are in a remote meeting, what do you advise that people do to make sure that it’s an inclusive experience?

[00:49:34] Amy Sandler: I think it’s a great question. One thing that I try to do is I always try to be in service of the full group. And so, for example, let’s say there’s a participant who is asking a bunch of questions that might be just for their unique situation or taking us down a different path. I’m sensitive to the amount of time that we have. I do my best to kind of honor and acknowledge that person at the same time of kind of holding the whole group. Like I feel a responsibility for the whole group. 

[00:50:02] And so I might say to that person, hey, I hear you about that question. I’m going to answer it now as best I can. It’s a larger question that we might not have time. I’m happy to make myself available afterwards. And so I think there’s that dance and as any leader, you have to have that sort of one on one ability at the one to many responsibility. And that’s something I take really seriously. 

[00:50:23] And then also just using, leveraging the chat and noticing what voices I may or may not have heard. And sort of building on what somebody has already said and asking it as a invitation, rather than saying, tell me more about that, Kim. Like, you know, just giving them the space too, ’cause some people write in chat because they feel safer that way as well.

[00:50:41] Kim Scott: So helpful. So shut down the bloviating bullshitters with kindness. 

[00:50:46] Amy Sandler: With some compassion. 

[00:50:48] Kim Scott: And give the quiet ones a voice in chat as well as. 

[00:50:52] Amy Sandler: Yeah. That you really hold responsibility to the full group. And so wherever we’re putting our time, we’re sort of saying what matters most. 

[00:51:00] Kieran Snyder: Shut down the, uh, bloviating bullshitters with kindness, I think is your episode quote. That’s it. That’s ready. 

[00:51:10] Amy Sandler: Kieran, um, how can people find you if it’s not at shutdown bloviating BSers.com? What’s where else can they find you? 

[00:51:18] Kieran Snyder: Not yet, but I’m quickly going to register to that. 

[00:51:20] Amy Sandler: Yeah. Let’s go get that name. We can go in on it. 

[00:51:22] Kieran Snyder: That’s our new business. Um, nerdprocessor.com is a great place if people want to subscribe and get the weekly installment. 

[00:51:30] Amy Sandler: Which I’m loving by the way, I get those emails. I really look forward to them. 

[00:51:35] Kieran Snyder: Thank you. Uh, there’s lots there and lots about executive management and all of the many painful mistakes. It’s like my catharsis. It’s all my painful mistakes over the years. Um, so people can go there, um, following me on LinkedIn is a great, uh, great thing to do as well. I publish, uh, lots of insights there. So,

[00:51:55] Amy Sandler: And Kieran, can you just spell your name for folks or so they know how to find you on LinkedIn if they’re just listening? 

[00:52:00] Kieran Snyder: Absolutely. Kieran, K I E R A N, Snyder, S N Y D E R. And nerdprocessor.com. 

[00:52:09] Amy Sandler: Awesome. And it’s spelled N E R D, even though it rhymes with word, which is awesome.

[00:52:14] Kieran Snyder: It is spelled N E R D and it does rhyme with word. 

[00:52:17] Amy Sandler: Yeah. 

[00:52:18] Kieran Snyder: That is the pun, Amy. You got it. 

[00:52:19] Amy Sandler: All right. I’m just, I’m finally catching up. 

[00:52:23] Kieran Snyder: You know, PhD in linguistics, spent most of my career building word processors. 

[00:52:28] Amy Sandler: Yes. I know. 

[00:52:30] Kieran Snyder: The greatest moment of my life was coming up with that domain. 

[00:52:32] Amy Sandler: It is honestly given me just years of enjoyment. So thank you. 

[00:52:37] Kieran Snyder: Thank you.

Radical Candor Podcast Resources

• Dear Manager, You’re Holding Too Many Meetings | HBR
• Why Gender Bias Makes Giving Feedback Hard For Everyone | Radical Candor
• Radically Inclusive Virtual Workshops: Real-Time Learnings From Zoom | Radical Candor
• 7 Leadership Communication Skills For Managing A Remote Team | Radical Candor
• Nerd Processor
• Kieran Snyder – Nerd Processor | Linkedin
• Performance Review Gender Bias: High-Achieving Women Are ‘abrasive’ | Fortune
• The Price All Women Pay For Gender Bias | Forbes

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