March 18, 2021 • 41 mins
To launch off the program/podcast we interview Antonette Ligons who I had the pleasure of knowing during my tenure at Cisco. Antonette was the original founder of an employee resource group called "Men for Inclusion" within Cisco.
We talk through Race, her journey being a woman of color, her struggles, and tipping points as well as other cultural stereotypes and how it drives discussion around privilege and power.
You can find more information on both me and the program at www.breakingboundariesonline.com. If you know anyone or would like to be featured on this podcast, please drop me an email to umesh@breakingboundariesonline.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Umesh Lakshman (00:08):
Hello everyone, my name is Umesh Lakshman, the
host and creator of breakingboundaries. Before we begin, I
wanted to take a moment. Andthank you for choosing to tune
in to this program, either onYouTube, Spotify, or Apple
podcasts. With a plethora ofoptions out there, my goal is to
(00:30):
make this valuable, insightfuland thought provoking use of
your time. You can find moreinformation about both me and
the program at dub dub dub dubbreaking boundaries online.com.
If you know anyone who wouldlike to be part of this program,
or if you'd like to be featuredon this podcast, please drop me
(00:50):
an email to mesh u m. e s h, atbreaking boundaries online.com.
The goal of breaking boundariesas a platform is to interview
everyday heroes to share theirlearnings, their struggles, and
the wins in the search for amore inclusive and diverse
(01:10):
landscape, both within andoutside of the workplace. Each
of them have transcendedstereotypes and have created
something not only forthemselves, but also for others.
So without further ado, welcometo breaking boundaries. To
launch off this podcast. Iinterview Antoinette lygon, who
(01:34):
is the director for diversityand inclusion at 2k games. And
Toronto and I crossed pathsduring our time at Cisco
Systems. Antoinette is one ofthe original founders have an
employee resource group, ororganization within the company
(01:54):
called men for inclusion. Aspart of this conversation, we
talked to race, her journeybeing a woman of color, her
struggles and tipping points aswell as other cultural
stereotypes, and how it drives adiscussion around privilege and
power. alongside me, we hadTanya Escobar, the current
(02:19):
global leader, for men forinclusion within Cisco co
hosting this episode.
May the Force Be With Us. Solike I said, this is your thank
you for being our guinea pigthrough this whole breaking
boundaries. whatever we want tocall right podcast, we do casts
(02:44):
Episode iniciative you're tryingto take here. The goal of today
was to learn more about yourjourney, in short, and you have
a very literal say a resumeworth the journey just around
diversity and inclusion that youhave had in the past. And one of
(03:06):
the things that I was mentioningto Tanya before you just hopped
on is you're the LG.
So I'm going to have Tonyaintroduce you as kind of our co
host. And then I have maybe abunch of initial questions and
then we'll go from there.
Antonette Ligons (03:26):
Okay, sounds good.
Umesh Lakshman (03:28):
Tanya, all yours.
Antonette Ligons (03:29):
Yeah. Hey, everyone.
Tania Escobar (03:31):
Thank you for joining us on this session. I'm
proud to introduce our firstheavy hitter guests guest,
Antoinette leghorns, who hasbeen an exemplary lead in this
journey of de AI, and who hadwas the former pm for Ben for
inclusion, global lead, andintroduced me to the work and
(03:55):
the journey. So thank you forbeing with us. You know, really
excited to get your kind of yourown experience from your own
words, right? Because you'vedone so much not only need lead
a network that has grownexponentially globally, but also
leading it into new directions,you know, a really what does it
(04:16):
mean to intently bring peoplein, you know, bring people in
and join in the conversation andaction for equity, and
inclusion. So, welcome.
Antonette Ligons (04:29):
Pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for that
great opening and introduction.
I mean, I'm not the Oh gee. I'vebeen doing this work with you
know, the help of you guys, youknow, people that have the same
passion and values and want tosee the same change in this
world. So it can't be done withjust one person. So but thank
you for the introduction. Ireally appreciate that. I'd love
(04:50):
to dive into this conversation.
So this is a great, great forumfor that space.
Umesh Lakshman (04:58):
Awesome. So yeah, there is no format We're
gonna stick to be very honest.
But to just kind of get youwarmed up. So how did your
journey with diversity andinclusion first start? And maybe
kind of a follow up questionthere is, what was that tipping
point where you decided, youknow what? Something's got to be
(05:18):
done. And I'm going to startdoing something now.
Yeah,
Antonette Ligons (05:26):
great question. Great question that
makes me kind of think about myjourney. You know, these many
years, when you first pose thequestion, when did your
diversity journey start? For me,it's been all my life. I mean, I
think a lot of us with, youknow, being immigrants or
African Americans, or, you know,I'm different than the majority
(05:48):
of the people in America, yourjourney starts, you know, kind
of from day one, when you noticethat difference. But then you
phrase the question, what wasthe tipping point for you? So
that, to me, was a very personaljourney as well. And it happened
while I was at Cisco. So I'vehad the fortunate journey, to
(06:09):
see my color to see my gender tosee that as a strength. So
anytime I went into a conferenceroom, or a an environment where
I was the minority, I saw thatas an opportunity, as an
opportunity to maybe dispel somestereotypes as an opportunity
just to kind of shine in my ownlight, because I knew I'd be the
(06:32):
only unique one in that space.
And so I was able to takeadvantages of various
opportunities, like being ableto go to college, being able to
actually get a PhD. So at somepoint, in my life, I've been I
got a job at Cisco, you know,working with one of the most
important high tech companies inthe world. So at some point in
my life, I felt like, you know,I've got this diversity thing
(06:54):
beat, I've got this thing undercontrol, because I've been able
to have successes, then I washit with a personal, a personal
journey of my own, where I lostmy husband to cancer. And so
that for me was really it kindof just knocked everything from
up under me, all the securitythat I thought I had, all of the
(07:16):
stereotypes, I thought I justdispelled, it really kind of
made my future very uncertain.
And at the time, I was workingat Cisco. And I was leading a
global project. And I was soafraid of telling people at
(07:36):
Cisco because I didn't. Firstoff, I didn't want to be thought
of as someone that neededsympathy, because I have been
very independent and gainsuccesses on my own, throughout
my life, without you know, much,you know, sympathy. And then the
second part is I didn't want myjobs be taken away from me, you
(07:56):
know, I was now going to be theonly provider for my family. So
with that being the case, Ididn't tell anybody until it was
nearly until he passed away.
Then he passed away, and I hadto take time off of my job. And
I stepped away. And everybody atCisco from my co workers and my
peers, all the way up to theCEO, john chambers, reached out
(08:17):
to me and said, Antoinette,there's no way you should go to
this by yourself, when you comeback to Cisco, you're going to
have your job secure, don'tworry about that go out and take
time for your family. And forpeople giving of themselves to
me that way, I just thought, Oh,my goodness, what compassion.
They don't really know me, youknow, personally, they know my
(08:38):
work. But Wow, when I come backto Cisco, I want to make sure
that everybody feels includedthat no one has to feel like
they're by themselves because ofsome personal thing that they're
going through. So I came back toCisco, my job obviously was
secure. I had a promotionwaiting for me. And my team just
really became my family at thatpoint. So that was the tipping
(09:00):
point for me. I felt like Iwanted to give back to every
employee at Cisco, I wanted tomake sure we were all felt
included, no matter what ourbackground was our
circumstances, our story, we allhave something valuable to give
to the organization. And that'sreally the platform that I ran
on, and how we basically startedmen for inclusion and really our
(09:22):
philosophy today, it reallyhasn't changed. But it started
that was the tipping point forme and just making sure that I
had access to programs to createopportunities for other inside
of Cisco.
Umesh Lakshman (09:37):
It actually leads into the next question
which Tanya is going to ask, butI do want to come back and touch
upon that. One big point youmentioned is privilege. And
maybe we should touch upon thatlater in today's session.
Tania Escobar (09:53):
Yeah, so you mentioned you know, your
personal tipping point. How doyou get into the conversation?
With other leaders within Ciscoto really have the genesis of
MSI be realized, right? Whatwere the drivers that really
motivated? You know, you, Caseywoo politics as well, was it
Lance Perry, and some of theother executives to really, you
(10:20):
know, getting the zone to reallycreate mF fi.
Antonette Ligons (10:24):
So I remember, it was about eight years ago,
there was a USA Today article.
And the article was about jessejackson coming to Silicon Valley
and talking about the lack ofdiversity in Silicon Valley. In
the same article, they printeddiversity statistics for all the
big companies, and everybody'sstatistic looked dismal. It was
(10:48):
very embarrassing. It was a bigspotlight on a huge problem that
was happening in Silicon Valley.
And Cisco actually had resourcesand some programs already, you
know, trying to address thisproblem. So coming into it,
(11:08):
knowing that we had a huge oceanto boil really, I wanted to
focus on what was going to getus the right impact. And so I
had been involved with variousinitiatives, diversity
initiatives, and they werealways around women, or helping
people of color helping peoplewith different abilities, but
they were always with the samepeople. So I've been winning
(11:31):
meetings with the same womentalking about these important
issues. Then I go into the blackprofessional arena, and it's be
the same black professionalstalking about these issues. We
really didn't see any traction,we didn't see an attraction or
numbers, we didn't see any realleadership support. We didn't
see you know, the impact and theopportunity being seized. So I
(11:53):
just happened to be in the spaceand I was tapped by Sherry
Slade. She says Antoinette, I'vegot a program called men for
inclusion. Right now, it's gottwo sponsors. And we're looking
for a program manager. And Ithought immediately My reaction
was mean for inclusion. Why,like a diversity program for
(12:14):
men? I didn't see theconnection. But I didn't tell
her No. I said, Okay, let me gohome and think about it. And
I'll get back to you. And so Iwent home, and I researched and
just, you know, try to dive deepinto the whole diversity
conversation, and why it wasimportant to draw to
involvement. And I read anarticle, it was a Harvard
Business Review article 2016.
And it it surveyed men infortune 500 companies, and ask
(12:40):
them, Do they feel included orexcluded in the diversity
conversation, for over 70% ofthem, felt excluded. And for me,
that wasn't a big surprise,because again, I worked in this
space, I worked with a lot ofleaders, and a lot of them
diversity is not top of mind forthem. It's kind of the last
(13:00):
thing on their list when they'retrying to run their business. So
at the same time, I also knewthat there would be no way that
we would AV have a programinside of Cisco, and exclude 70%
of the people, the leaders andexpect that program to be
successful. So it was the sameapproach we were taking with
diversity. And the light bulbwent off in my head, like, Okay,
(13:23):
we've got men who want to dosomething, they don't know what
to do. They hold a lot of power,seniority in the organization in
the company, why not galvanizethem and create an actual forum
where they can come together,and talk about their ally ship
journey, and help each othergrow in a way that's going to be
meaningful, and help othersother underrepresented groups
(13:46):
inside of Cisco. That ideareally did sink in with the
executives they were brought on.
And every time I talked throughwith, with them through the
idea, everyone said, Yes, Inever got to know, because it
just seemed like a no brainer toreally start galvanizing the
(14:06):
support of all of ourexecutives, especially males. So
yeah, that's kind of how thatwhole thing came to fruition.
Umesh Lakshman (14:14):
That is, that is an awesome story. And just
because I mean, like, if thatwas 2016 2020 now and I've been
doing MFA for a year. And one ofthe common challenges I face is
how do I galvanize more of me?
Right. There's maybe hundreds ofhurdles there, just to cross
(14:34):
through and we'll maybe uncoverthem to some extent today. What
were your biggest hurdles ingoing from, hey, we need to do
something to actually getting todo something.
Antonette Ligons (14:47):
Yes. Okay. So a couple of things. The first
one we talked about was youalready mentioned was the
galvanizing support, how do youget people turned on to that? So
you know, we had a coupledifferent strategies at first We
thought, you know, you know,traditionally you want
leadership support, you want itfrom the top down, you want, you
know, leaders to reallyunderstand that this is
(15:08):
important. So we started in SanJose with the busiest leaders in
the world. And, you know, wereally found that we didn't make
Trent traction with them. Theydidn't have time, they, you
know, are running these millionmultimillion dollar portfolios,
you know, diversity, theenvironment did not demand for
(15:29):
them to take diversity seriouslyat this point. So we looked for
other opportunities. And what wedid find was that our program
teams seem to be growing, andthey were growing with young
males. And we hit on that, youknow, Millennials get it. People
born, you know, after the babyafter the Generation X
(15:53):
generation, I guess, if youwill, after that, it really is a
conversation about why don't youhave this program, I can't
believe your organizationdoesn't have anything like this.
So we were behind the ball interms of their mindset and where
they expected companies to be interms of their inclusive
inclusion journey. So we got thesupport of a lot of our early
(16:13):
careers. And when they'remanagers, their vice presidents
started seeing theirinvolvement, they change their
mind. And it was actually ameeting that I had privy to one
of senior VP had his leadershipmeeting, and they were talking
about the issues in theirorganization, specifically, the
(16:33):
gender imbalance. And one of thepeople in the meeting said, We
need MSI. And he said, What isMSI? And once he found out what
MSI was, it was kind of like,you know, that was it. That was
the key to his, the solution tohis challenge. And so he started
being a supporter of mF phi. Andwe really got more traction,
(16:55):
more money, donations, and moreinvolvement ultimately. So that
was one of the biggestchallenges and still continues
to be a challenge. Now theenvironment is kind of dictating
that organizations placediversity is one of their top
priorities. I love to see that.
I really would like to see thefocus more on men, people are
just kind of getting a hold ofthat notion is maybe something
(17:17):
that they want to try to startlooking at and uncovering
something that was veryinnovative for Cisco, because
now I mean, even when I talk toother companies, they can't
understand how we've done it anddone it so well. We're really
one of the only companies thathave a really robust ally ship
program for a minute. So I'mhappy with the outcome so far.
Umesh Lakshman (17:40):
So great que en for a shameless plug about MSI.
Which is, I mean, I think you'vekind of delineated one of the
biggest and by the way, I'm theengineer on the call. So I'm
gonna say things likedelineated. So what you kind of
highlighted, one of the biggestchallenges, right? There's a big
(18:01):
difference betweenorganizational priority and
putting the priority tooperation and actually being
able to get outcomes thattranslated to the long term
journey. MSI to be foreverybody's listening is all
about enabling frontlineindividuals, frontline managers,
frontline leaders from a bottomsup approach to align to
(18:24):
potentially a top downorganizational priority. So
that's the way I see it, andmaybe Tanya and Antoinette, you
can maybe comment on that aswell. Because I feel it gives us
tangible tools, versus just aslide to look at and be like,
right now, I got to do this, butI don't know how this lets us do
you go from the house to thewater? And these are things that
(18:46):
we got to repeatedly do.
Antonette Ligons (18:48):
I like that perspective and mash because you
know why? It really isdifferent. It keeps us honest.
And it's a sounding board for usto making sure we are course
correcting. The other thing Ireally love about MSI is how we
get our men, a lot of our menare nominated by women. So
initially, we didn't want youknow, just people to say oh, I'm
(19:11):
with MSI and just checking thebox saying they're part of our
program. We really want it manwho walked the walk and talk the
talk. And so we asked fornominations. We asked people,
women who knew men who wouldhelp them in their career who
were really inclusive,innovative leaders start
nominating men to takeleadership positions inside of
(19:33):
MSI when he did that and thenhaving you know, Tanya, myself
as program leads women in chargeof a male you know, leading a
male ally organization, whatbetter sounding boards could you
have? And so just the fact thatmF fi traditionally didn't get
started the traditional way er,Ozu or just other company or
(19:54):
networks, we really have aunique positioning because of
the way We started, and the waythat we have organically grown,
I think it just gives us morecredibility, and it shows us and
it shows, you know, ourstakeholders that everybody has
a space in MSI. It's not justfor white guys. It's not just
for men. It's not just forwomen, it's for all of us who
(20:18):
want to take part in thisinclusion journey. And we all
help each other in various ways.
Umesh Lakshman (20:24):
Yeah, that's phenomenal. Because I love what
he said there is to be aninclusive male, you got to start
with listening to what you needto be implementing first, to
have more of not you. So that'sliterally how I see it. And one
of the biggest learnings that Ihad is as part of the MMI
(20:47):
process, you have theselistening sessions when you
start a chapter, because I knowI'm mentoring a chapter now. And
I was like, I don't even Ididn't even know that there was
a very structured approach togoing about doing that. And it
was one of those aha moments asto be like, okay, yeah, that
makes sense. We should maybestrategize around what the
community wants versus what wewant.
Antonette Ligons (21:08):
Right? Yes, bingo. That was one of the big.
Another challenge. You know, wewere talking about challenges
earlier, was the optics onhaving a whole male network. I
mean, when people first heard ofmF fi, they really got scared,
and I had someone tell me,Antoinette, you're really going
to put men in a room and havethem make decisions about
(21:29):
diversity? Are you crazy. And sooptically, that did not look
good, but what I convinced themwas, you know, just what we said
is, if they want theinformation, why not give them
to them in a structured form,where we can all learn, and if
they're okay, with, you know,having a woman, a woman lead the
program, then even more kudos tothem, let's not, you know, fight
(21:53):
that let's go with the tide andreally create something that's
sustainable. And that works foreveryone that wants to be
involved. And so we really hadto reposition that. But I think
that was one of the biggestchallenges, that started to be a
real success for us. Yeah.
Tania Escobar (22:09):
That's what resonates with me as well, in
going, living MMI, it's, it'snot designed to be an echo
chamber just for men, right?
Really, those decisions
Unknown (22:25):
that we have enough of those already,
Tania Escobar (22:27):
that will impact the work, the inclusion
ecosystem, really do have totake in the the feedback and the
inputs of those that will, itwill impact a release to center
them. So I think that'sextraordinary, and how this
network differentiates itself asan advocate, kind of network for
(22:50):
about within Cisco.
Umesh Lakshman (22:52):
You both briefly touched on this, and I'm gonna
put you on the spot. And maybethis is where the gloves are
coming off. Which is both of youare women leading a male ally
ship network. How did that go?
What were the brutal realitiesthat he faced as part of that
function? And what can men whoare trying to join MFA do
better? When we look atleadership from a non gender
(23:13):
oriented lens?
Antonette Ligons (23:20):
Good questions. For me, what I
initially thought was, there'sno way they're going to listen
to a woman. Talk about allyship, I had my own stereotype
about what I thought the menwanted to see, and how the how I
would be received. And I almosttalked myself out of being a
(23:41):
program manager a few timesinteresting. Especially when we
launched two locations that wereheavily male dominated like
India, I tried my best to get awhite guy to come in speak for
me to be my mouth to talk aboutmF fi on behalf of me. And it
(24:04):
never it didn't pan out. And Iwent there. And I was blown away
by the openness, by thewelcoming that I got by there.
They were like, thank goodness,someone from headquarters is
coming to talk about our issues.
They were will so the womenthere just welcomed another
(24:26):
woman who could reallyunderstand their unique
challenges. And I'm just gonnaput it out there. I don't know.
I think the men just appreciateit another brown skinned person
from headquarters really talkingabout their challenges. You
know, I wasn't I am a woman, andI'm sure there's some
differences, you know,differences. That that holds for
(24:48):
them, but I did not feel it. Ifelt so welcome. And so for me,
I think you know, as we'relaunching in these different
locations is very, veryimportant that we get out of our
own way. You know, we have ourown biases. And just because I'm
a black woman doesn't mean I'm,I'm not biased, or that I
(25:10):
understand bias very deeply. Youknow, I'm still just a person
who's learning and growing. Andso the mission for mF fi, if it
connects with you, it doesn'tmatter who you are, where you
are, the position you are in,there is a place for you there.
So yeah, that's that was myexperience and kind of just
(25:31):
trying to understand that thatunique dynamic.
Tania Escobar (25:36):
And then I'm so glad you said that, because I
just want to say I see you,because that feeling of imposter
syndrome is, it's so prevalent,even in myself, you know,
stepping into the role isbelieved like, it's, it's
daunting to say, okay, you willlead, you know, a large network
(25:57):
of men to try and really notjust influence the culture
within your own company, butit's a mindset change. It's a
culture change, right? That isvery daunting. But what I, the
flip side of that coin, is thatI realized through working with
such passionate people andhaving conversations is that men
(26:20):
feel imposter syndrome to rightmen have these insecurities
about the their impact and whatthey can do, right? So what I,
what I'm loving about thisopportunity is yes, it is
incredibly uncomfortable, tostep into this work to step into
this network. But at the sametime, hey, you're going you
(26:43):
probably have the samequestions. I have maybe a little
bit different perspective, menor women, but through that
insecurity, that's a commonalitywe have and I think we just, we
can start start there, right,that we can just have a
conversation, learn from eachother. with each other. Right,
be willing to because peoplewill make mistakes, but we're
(27:06):
honoring the pack that peoplewant to show up. And that's
huge.
Antonette Ligons (27:11):
Yes, yes. And I'm so glad you talked about the
whole fear, because, you know,we always try to get our
executives to really beauthentic and share their
stories, any person MMI becauseit's so helpful. But there's so
much fear, initially interferingin experience that didn't go
(27:32):
well for you and experience youdid not master. And so much of
that this inclusion work, thisdiversity work is that it's that
uncomfortable feeling of notbeing quite right, not being
quite accepted, and juststepping out on a limb. But the
more you do it, the more trustyou build with your team, the
(27:52):
more authentic you become, youknow, and be seen as, and the
more you get over that fear. Andit becomes just a way for you to
talk and express yourself. Andpeople are bonded to that they
really jive with that. And soit's more, you know, mimic mF
five and really build ourplatform on the listening,
(28:13):
helping men listen to others,and get to the point where they
want to share their experienceas well. And getting past that
fear of not knowing everything,that's okay. We don't always
have to have the answers forthese hard conversations, these
hard challenges that come up andtopics and issues. But the fact
that we're there and listeningand building trust, and just
(28:35):
being vulnerable with each otheris such a huge step in all of
us, for all of us. Butespecially for mF fi, it's
really, you know, helping usgrow together. So yeah, I'm glad
you brought that up. Thanks.
Umesh Lakshman (28:49):
Yeah, I think from a very general, maybe
shifting the lens a little bitand giving you my perspective is
when you're talking aboutimposter syndrome. And I've had
this conversation with a few menaround how culture drives
imposter syndrome as well. Youmentioned traveling to India,
India has a very strong likevery binary culture, right,
(29:12):
which is when I was growing up,I was either supposed to be an
engineer or a doctor or a loser.
Those were very that was a verydrastic, like Cliff dive at the
end of that conversation. Soit's it's it's it's a culture
which is driven me initially tothink that there was no room for
failure and iteration. So, forbike I have to get out of my own
(29:35):
echo chamber echo chamber ofgoing in and saying okay, I do
not know the answer. Like and Iam good enough, in some cases is
like, worse and I had to makestatements versus ask questions.
imposter syndrome sits in theland of questions, right? Am I
good enough? Am I am I qualifiedenough. A lot of that going on
(29:58):
in your echo chamber andshifting that from questions to
statements does that I am goodenough, right? I am very
qualified to get this and itdrove drove a lot of the initial
was as a personal transformationfor me, then I've seen that with
some others I've spoken to, thenwe've created a safe space for
(30:19):
like a moment. Yeah, I justthought I should share that with
both of you here as well.
Antonette Ligons (30:25):
It's very important for you to I'm glad
you did, because so many of uswhen we are in this space, we
think we're the only ones andlike, you know, Tonya mentioned,
we thought we were the only oneswith the whole imposter
syndrome. And for you as aseasoned executive to know that
you still go through that, asmany speeches that you give you
know that that's still achallenge for you. I think it's
(30:46):
another point to the whole MSImission. I mean, me as a woman,
I get something out of MSI, butI get something out of a woman's
group too. But I find that and Iget something out of the black
professionals group, but I findthat we have reoccurring themes,
we all are feeling, you know,the same challenges and have the
same aches and pain points. Sowhy not have these conversations
(31:07):
where we have theseintersectionalities kind of
criss crossing each other andinviting more conversations to
take place about things that wethought were different, but we
will probably find out we havemore alike than we do different.
So again, it's another platformfor why it's so important to
(31:28):
have MFA and other programs likethat available.
Umesh Lakshman (31:32):
I'm switching gears a little bit. Maybe give
us an example of things that youreally walk out of here saying,
Wow, that was great. That was anawesome outcome when it came to
diversity and inclusion. And I'msure in your journey here with
Cisco. And in the DI space. Youhad a few of those. So I'm
(31:52):
asking you to pick one, which ismaybe a tough one. But if
there's more than one, that'scompletely fine.
Antonette Ligons (32:00):
Yes. Okay. So this is probably this is why it
sticks with me because it was myvery first recruiting trip. And
we went to Grace Hopper. And,you know, Grace Hopper has got
the best of the best, brightestwomen technologists in the
country. 20,000 women from thebest universities, and you go
there and you try to hobnob withyou know, big companies and try
(32:21):
to get a package or get signedon. Cisco hosted a cocktail
hour, one night, and I wasthere, you know, picking up
resumes talking to some of thestudents. And I noticed an
African American lady, she'sjust sitting over to the side.
And she kind of eyed me when Ifirst came in, we kind of said
hi to each other. And then I'msitting at my table. And as soon
(32:42):
as I finish talking with oneperson, she comes over to me,
and she says I want to give youmy resume, but I want to tell
you right now, I have a 2.0 likea 2.3 I really struggled last
year at my college, she went toTexas a&m and she knows she had
an internship at GE but then shehad to quit, she had to take
(33:02):
care of her mom and her GPA justdidn't really show her true
potential. And I said, but Ijust had a conversation with
her, you know, and I can tellshe's really bright, smart girl.
And she eyed me out and youknow, had enough guts to come up
and have the conversation andhave that hard conversation with
me and not try to impress me andtell me something that she's
not. And so I took herapplication, and I set her up
(33:25):
with the interview. And sheended up getting hired in our
RTP office. And she sent me anemail to said Antoinette, thank
you so much. You encouraged me.
And I ended up getting a Ciscointernship and I'm so grateful.
Well, then she went on, Ifollowed her career on LinkedIn.
She went on to Price WaterhouseCooper and as a full time
Program Manager, she sent me ina LinkedIn message she said she
(33:50):
was picked to study at CarnegieMellon Hall as a fellow, she got
a graduate apprenticeship as afellow for Carnegie Mellon. And
I went, Wow. And that's becauseCisco was on her resume. That's
because you know, PriceWaterhouse was on a resume,
(34:10):
that's because we really hadaccess to give people
opportunities that they reallywouldn't have in a traditional
setting. And so, you know, forme, that's all it took for me as
somebody just to not see me in abox and see my potential and
offer that. And if I can get 100men to do that, if I can get
1000 men to do that if we canget 100,000 men to do that. Just
(34:32):
think of that impact that thatcould have for people's lives,
you know? Yeah, well, you knowthat for me that story and that
just happened to sent me thatemail for Carnegie Mellon just
about a month ago, and I wasjust like, almost in tears
because I've seen her fullcircle, you know? So yeah,
Umesh Lakshman (34:52):
that's awesome.
I think a lot of the biggestachievements when it comes to
things like the are somebodyBeing a part of somebody else's
journey?
Unknown (35:01):
Yes.
Umesh Lakshman (35:04):
And somehow influencing or doing something
that was a very pivotal point.
They're in their trajectoryoverall, like career or life or
something. Yes. And then theit's not a tangible
satisfaction, I feel it's moreof a, like the sleep well at
night kind of thing.
Antonette Ligons (35:26):
For me, it's all the hard day's worth it, you
know, and I
Umesh Lakshman (35:30):
go to bed with a smile. That's all sucky. And she
had But clearly, okay, great.
It's like, yeah, it's all agrain. And I know, you're all
stuck at home, and we're allstaring at four walls now. But
that was worth it. And you kindof go back and be like, Okay,
great. That was awesome. Yeah.
Now, you know, we have a shortamount of time. So I'm going to
(35:50):
jump into a broader topic here,which is around just 2020. The
landscape has changedphenomenally over the last
eight, nine months. And that'snot just around diversity and
inclusion, but it's, I would saywith the lens is broadened to
(36:11):
include social justice as well.
It's front and center now. Whatcould anyone do? any individual
right? So this could be you, me?
Tanya, anybody who's listeningto this? Dude, that is tangible.
Yeah, that can that can bringabout positive change. As it
(36:33):
relates to the
Antonette Ligons (36:35):
I thought three things that I like to tell
people, because you know, now isthe time where people want to
know, you know, they want to beactive allies, they want to
know, how can I help supportblack people? How can I help
help support people other thanme. So there's three things that
I like to do, I like to tellpeople, the first one is to
stand up, when you see aninjustice right then and there,
(36:56):
speak up for somebody use yourpower or your privilege to right
that wrong, right in in time,real time. The second thing is,
if you are in a position ofpower, please create
opportunities for peopledifferent than yourself. those
opportunities can be lifechanging for people, I mean, you
just really don't know what thatlittle decision you make, that
(37:18):
you may not even think about canreally impact someone's life.
And the last thing is teach yourkids how to be allies to people
that are different. Embracedifferences. If you have a kid
who's got you know, a personwith a disability in their
class, make sure your kid is inthat class, make sure your kid
is one of those helpers. Youknow, just actively be an ally,
(37:39):
mentor for your kid and watchyour kids grow up naturally
embracing diversity. So thoseare the three things I think
anybody can do. Yeah, I think
Umesh Lakshman (37:51):
the goal here is well, and as we kind of like
finish up and kind of close outfor the discussion was to kind
of learn more about yourjourney, right? Because I mean,
I feel like we could spend maybea full another 60 minutes and
we'd be still chipping away atit. One last commentary around
privilege. How do you defineprivilege?
Antonette Ligons (38:16):
privilege is a position that you have based on
something that gives you power?
Umesh Lakshman (38:30):
Yeah. Okay, there you go. Bingo. So the
reason I kind of put you on thespot there is because I wanted
that power word to come out.
Right is, is you would be amazedat how many things I thought I
was not considering privilegetill somebody kind of said like,
dude, your privilege. And I waslike,
Unknown (38:56):
All right.
Umesh Lakshman (38:57):
All right. I had one of those moments at better
man. I think Tonya was sittingnext to me when that happened to
somebody he said, Dude,education is privilege.
Unknown (39:09):
Yes,
Antonette Ligons (39:10):
sit in it. And that's the difficulty you ask
because we sit in it. So whenyou see it, I have privilege all
day long to my son just said,Mom, you know, we've been so
privileged to live through thispandemic and not really feel our
lives changed. What a privilege.
And I said, Wow, yeah. Wow. Sowe, yeah, everybody has a
privilege. You may not feel it,because you're in it. But I bet
(39:33):
you everybody has an advantage.
Umesh Lakshman (39:38):
Yeah. Tanya, did you have any questions for
Antoinette? Oh,
Tania Escobar (39:45):
I could keep her here for another hour. I'm sure
you have a lot of amazingstories with all the different
people that you work with andCisco, and just doing this work,
you know, how it reflects outinto the industry, right and
getting to connect with othercompanies and other thought
leaders on this, so I'll saythose questions for another
(40:06):
time. But I sincerely want tothank you for your willing, your
willingness, your investment,and your joy that you bring, you
know, as a fellow Cisco onion,but as a black woman, you know,
as a leader. You know, it's,it's been such a pleasure to
learn from you, and work withyou, and try and put these
(40:29):
bricks together for a foundationthat, you know, we can carry on
into the future years, so, sothat hopefully one day every
every corner of Cisco andsociety will have, you know,
infrastructure for folks to stepinto the advocacy and not feel
(40:49):
like it's not for them, or anextracurricular thing. So then
you Oh, thank
Hello everyone, my name is Umesh Lakshman, the
host and creator of breakingboundaries. Before we begin, I
wanted to take a moment. Andthank you for choosing to tune
in to this program, either onYouTube, Spotify, or Apple
podcasts. With a plethora ofoptions out there, my goal is to
(00:30):
make this valuable, insightfuland thought provoking use of
your time. You can find moreinformation about both me and
the program at dub dub dub dubbreaking boundaries online.com.
If you know anyone who wouldlike to be part of this program,
or if you'd like to be featuredon this podcast, please drop me
(00:50):
an email to mesh u m. e s h, atbreaking boundaries online.com.
The goal of breaking boundariesas a platform is to interview
everyday heroes to share theirlearnings, their struggles, and
the wins in the search for amore inclusive and diverse
(01:10):
landscape, both within andoutside of the workplace. Each
of them have transcendedstereotypes and have created
something not only forthemselves, but also for others.
So without further ado, welcometo breaking boundaries. To
launch off this podcast. Iinterview Antoinette lygon, who
(01:34):
is the director for diversityand inclusion at 2k games. And
Toronto and I crossed pathsduring our time at Cisco
Systems. Antoinette is one ofthe original founders have an
employee resource group, ororganization within the company
(01:54):
called men for inclusion. Aspart of this conversation, we
talked to race, her journeybeing a woman of color, her
struggles and tipping points aswell as other cultural
stereotypes, and how it drives adiscussion around privilege and
power. alongside me, we hadTanya Escobar, the current
(02:19):
global leader, for men forinclusion within Cisco co
hosting this episode.
May the Force Be With Us. Solike I said, this is your thank
you for being our guinea pigthrough this whole breaking
boundaries. whatever we want tocall right podcast, we do casts
(02:44):
Episode iniciative you're tryingto take here. The goal of today
was to learn more about yourjourney, in short, and you have
a very literal say a resumeworth the journey just around
diversity and inclusion that youhave had in the past. And one of
(03:06):
the things that I was mentioningto Tanya before you just hopped
on is you're the LG.
So I'm going to have Tonyaintroduce you as kind of our co
host. And then I have maybe abunch of initial questions and
then we'll go from there.
Antonette Ligons (03:26):
Okay, sounds good.
Umesh Lakshman (03:28):
Tanya, all yours.
Antonette Ligons (03:29):
Yeah. Hey, everyone.
Tania Escobar (03:31):
Thank you for joining us on this session. I'm
proud to introduce our firstheavy hitter guests guest,
Antoinette leghorns, who hasbeen an exemplary lead in this
journey of de AI, and who hadwas the former pm for Ben for
inclusion, global lead, andintroduced me to the work and
(03:55):
the journey. So thank you forbeing with us. You know, really
excited to get your kind of yourown experience from your own
words, right? Because you'vedone so much not only need lead
a network that has grownexponentially globally, but also
leading it into new directions,you know, a really what does it
(04:16):
mean to intently bring peoplein, you know, bring people in
and join in the conversation andaction for equity, and
inclusion. So, welcome.
Antonette Ligons (04:29):
Pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for that
great opening and introduction.
I mean, I'm not the Oh gee. I'vebeen doing this work with you
know, the help of you guys, youknow, people that have the same
passion and values and want tosee the same change in this
world. So it can't be done withjust one person. So but thank
you for the introduction. Ireally appreciate that. I'd love
(04:50):
to dive into this conversation.
So this is a great, great forumfor that space.
Umesh Lakshman (04:58):
Awesome. So yeah, there is no format We're
gonna stick to be very honest.
But to just kind of get youwarmed up. So how did your
journey with diversity andinclusion first start? And maybe
kind of a follow up questionthere is, what was that tipping
point where you decided, youknow what? Something's got to be
(05:18):
done. And I'm going to startdoing something now.
Yeah,
Antonette Ligons (05:26):
great question. Great question that
makes me kind of think about myjourney. You know, these many
years, when you first pose thequestion, when did your
diversity journey start? For me,it's been all my life. I mean, I
think a lot of us with, youknow, being immigrants or
African Americans, or, you know,I'm different than the majority
(05:48):
of the people in America, yourjourney starts, you know, kind
of from day one, when you noticethat difference. But then you
phrase the question, what wasthe tipping point for you? So
that, to me, was a very personaljourney as well. And it happened
while I was at Cisco. So I'vehad the fortunate journey, to
(06:09):
see my color to see my gender tosee that as a strength. So
anytime I went into a conferenceroom, or a an environment where
I was the minority, I saw thatas an opportunity, as an
opportunity to maybe dispel somestereotypes as an opportunity
just to kind of shine in my ownlight, because I knew I'd be the
(06:32):
only unique one in that space.
And so I was able to takeadvantages of various
opportunities, like being ableto go to college, being able to
actually get a PhD. So at somepoint, in my life, I've been I
got a job at Cisco, you know,working with one of the most
important high tech companies inthe world. So at some point in
my life, I felt like, you know,I've got this diversity thing
(06:54):
beat, I've got this thing undercontrol, because I've been able
to have successes, then I washit with a personal, a personal
journey of my own, where I lostmy husband to cancer. And so
that for me was really it kindof just knocked everything from
up under me, all the securitythat I thought I had, all of the
(07:16):
stereotypes, I thought I justdispelled, it really kind of
made my future very uncertain.
And at the time, I was workingat Cisco. And I was leading a
global project. And I was soafraid of telling people at
(07:36):
Cisco because I didn't. Firstoff, I didn't want to be thought
of as someone that neededsympathy, because I have been
very independent and gainsuccesses on my own, throughout
my life, without you know, much,you know, sympathy. And then the
second part is I didn't want myjobs be taken away from me, you
(07:56):
know, I was now going to be theonly provider for my family. So
with that being the case, Ididn't tell anybody until it was
nearly until he passed away.
Then he passed away, and I hadto take time off of my job. And
I stepped away. And everybody atCisco from my co workers and my
peers, all the way up to theCEO, john chambers, reached out
(08:17):
to me and said, Antoinette,there's no way you should go to
this by yourself, when you comeback to Cisco, you're going to
have your job secure, don'tworry about that go out and take
time for your family. And forpeople giving of themselves to
me that way, I just thought, Oh,my goodness, what compassion.
They don't really know me, youknow, personally, they know my
(08:38):
work. But Wow, when I come backto Cisco, I want to make sure
that everybody feels includedthat no one has to feel like
they're by themselves because ofsome personal thing that they're
going through. So I came back toCisco, my job obviously was
secure. I had a promotionwaiting for me. And my team just
really became my family at thatpoint. So that was the tipping
(09:00):
point for me. I felt like Iwanted to give back to every
employee at Cisco, I wanted tomake sure we were all felt
included, no matter what ourbackground was our
circumstances, our story, we allhave something valuable to give
to the organization. And that'sreally the platform that I ran
on, and how we basically startedmen for inclusion and really our
(09:22):
philosophy today, it reallyhasn't changed. But it started
that was the tipping point forme and just making sure that I
had access to programs to createopportunities for other inside
of Cisco.
Umesh Lakshman (09:37):
It actually leads into the next question
which Tanya is going to ask, butI do want to come back and touch
upon that. One big point youmentioned is privilege. And
maybe we should touch upon thatlater in today's session.
Tania Escobar (09:53):
Yeah, so you mentioned you know, your
personal tipping point. How doyou get into the conversation?
With other leaders within Ciscoto really have the genesis of
MSI be realized, right? Whatwere the drivers that really
motivated? You know, you, Caseywoo politics as well, was it
Lance Perry, and some of theother executives to really, you
(10:20):
know, getting the zone to reallycreate mF fi.
Antonette Ligons (10:24):
So I remember, it was about eight years ago,
there was a USA Today article.
And the article was about jessejackson coming to Silicon Valley
and talking about the lack ofdiversity in Silicon Valley. In
the same article, they printeddiversity statistics for all the
big companies, and everybody'sstatistic looked dismal. It was
(10:48):
very embarrassing. It was a bigspotlight on a huge problem that
was happening in Silicon Valley.
And Cisco actually had resourcesand some programs already, you
know, trying to address thisproblem. So coming into it,
(11:08):
knowing that we had a huge oceanto boil really, I wanted to
focus on what was going to getus the right impact. And so I
had been involved with variousinitiatives, diversity
initiatives, and they werealways around women, or helping
people of color helping peoplewith different abilities, but
they were always with the samepeople. So I've been winning
(11:31):
meetings with the same womentalking about these important
issues. Then I go into the blackprofessional arena, and it's be
the same black professionalstalking about these issues. We
really didn't see any traction,we didn't see an attraction or
numbers, we didn't see any realleadership support. We didn't
see you know, the impact and theopportunity being seized. So I
(11:53):
just happened to be in the spaceand I was tapped by Sherry
Slade. She says Antoinette, I'vegot a program called men for
inclusion. Right now, it's gottwo sponsors. And we're looking
for a program manager. And Ithought immediately My reaction
was mean for inclusion. Why,like a diversity program for
(12:14):
men? I didn't see theconnection. But I didn't tell
her No. I said, Okay, let me gohome and think about it. And
I'll get back to you. And so Iwent home, and I researched and
just, you know, try to dive deepinto the whole diversity
conversation, and why it wasimportant to draw to
involvement. And I read anarticle, it was a Harvard
Business Review article 2016.
And it it surveyed men infortune 500 companies, and ask
(12:40):
them, Do they feel included orexcluded in the diversity
conversation, for over 70% ofthem, felt excluded. And for me,
that wasn't a big surprise,because again, I worked in this
space, I worked with a lot ofleaders, and a lot of them
diversity is not top of mind forthem. It's kind of the last
(13:00):
thing on their list when they'retrying to run their business. So
at the same time, I also knewthat there would be no way that
we would AV have a programinside of Cisco, and exclude 70%
of the people, the leaders andexpect that program to be
successful. So it was the sameapproach we were taking with
diversity. And the light bulbwent off in my head, like, Okay,
(13:23):
we've got men who want to dosomething, they don't know what
to do. They hold a lot of power,seniority in the organization in
the company, why not galvanizethem and create an actual forum
where they can come together,and talk about their ally ship
journey, and help each othergrow in a way that's going to be
meaningful, and help othersother underrepresented groups
(13:46):
inside of Cisco. That ideareally did sink in with the
executives they were brought on.
And every time I talked throughwith, with them through the
idea, everyone said, Yes, Inever got to know, because it
just seemed like a no brainer toreally start galvanizing the
(14:06):
support of all of ourexecutives, especially males. So
yeah, that's kind of how thatwhole thing came to fruition.
Umesh Lakshman (14:14):
That is, that is an awesome story. And just
because I mean, like, if thatwas 2016 2020 now and I've been
doing MFA for a year. And one ofthe common challenges I face is
how do I galvanize more of me?
Right. There's maybe hundreds ofhurdles there, just to cross
(14:34):
through and we'll maybe uncoverthem to some extent today. What
were your biggest hurdles ingoing from, hey, we need to do
something to actually getting todo something.
Antonette Ligons (14:47):
Yes. Okay. So a couple of things. The first
one we talked about was youalready mentioned was the
galvanizing support, how do youget people turned on to that? So
you know, we had a coupledifferent strategies at first We
thought, you know, you know,traditionally you want
leadership support, you want itfrom the top down, you want, you
know, leaders to reallyunderstand that this is
(15:08):
important. So we started in SanJose with the busiest leaders in
the world. And, you know, wereally found that we didn't make
Trent traction with them. Theydidn't have time, they, you
know, are running these millionmultimillion dollar portfolios,
you know, diversity, theenvironment did not demand for
(15:29):
them to take diversity seriouslyat this point. So we looked for
other opportunities. And what wedid find was that our program
teams seem to be growing, andthey were growing with young
males. And we hit on that, youknow, Millennials get it. People
born, you know, after the babyafter the Generation X
(15:53):
generation, I guess, if youwill, after that, it really is a
conversation about why don't youhave this program, I can't
believe your organizationdoesn't have anything like this.
So we were behind the ball interms of their mindset and where
they expected companies to be interms of their inclusive
inclusion journey. So we got thesupport of a lot of our early
(16:13):
careers. And when they'remanagers, their vice presidents
started seeing theirinvolvement, they change their
mind. And it was actually ameeting that I had privy to one
of senior VP had his leadershipmeeting, and they were talking
about the issues in theirorganization, specifically, the
(16:33):
gender imbalance. And one of thepeople in the meeting said, We
need MSI. And he said, What isMSI? And once he found out what
MSI was, it was kind of like,you know, that was it. That was
the key to his, the solution tohis challenge. And so he started
being a supporter of mF phi. Andwe really got more traction,
(16:55):
more money, donations, and moreinvolvement ultimately. So that
was one of the biggestchallenges and still continues
to be a challenge. Now theenvironment is kind of dictating
that organizations placediversity is one of their top
priorities. I love to see that.
I really would like to see thefocus more on men, people are
just kind of getting a hold ofthat notion is maybe something
(17:17):
that they want to try to startlooking at and uncovering
something that was veryinnovative for Cisco, because
now I mean, even when I talk toother companies, they can't
understand how we've done it anddone it so well. We're really
one of the only companies thathave a really robust ally ship
program for a minute. So I'mhappy with the outcome so far.
Umesh Lakshman (17:40):
So great que en for a shameless plug about MSI.
Which is, I mean, I think you'vekind of delineated one of the
biggest and by the way, I'm theengineer on the call. So I'm
gonna say things likedelineated. So what you kind of
highlighted, one of the biggestchallenges, right? There's a big
(18:01):
difference betweenorganizational priority and
putting the priority tooperation and actually being
able to get outcomes thattranslated to the long term
journey. MSI to be foreverybody's listening is all
about enabling frontlineindividuals, frontline managers,
frontline leaders from a bottomsup approach to align to
(18:24):
potentially a top downorganizational priority. So
that's the way I see it, andmaybe Tanya and Antoinette, you
can maybe comment on that aswell. Because I feel it gives us
tangible tools, versus just aslide to look at and be like,
right now, I got to do this, butI don't know how this lets us do
you go from the house to thewater? And these are things that
(18:46):
we got to repeatedly do.
Antonette Ligons (18:48):
I like that perspective and mash because you
know why? It really isdifferent. It keeps us honest.
And it's a sounding board for usto making sure we are course
correcting. The other thing Ireally love about MSI is how we
get our men, a lot of our menare nominated by women. So
initially, we didn't want youknow, just people to say oh, I'm
(19:11):
with MSI and just checking thebox saying they're part of our
program. We really want it manwho walked the walk and talk the
talk. And so we asked fornominations. We asked people,
women who knew men who wouldhelp them in their career who
were really inclusive,innovative leaders start
nominating men to takeleadership positions inside of
(19:33):
MSI when he did that and thenhaving you know, Tanya, myself
as program leads women in chargeof a male you know, leading a
male ally organization, whatbetter sounding boards could you
have? And so just the fact thatmF fi traditionally didn't get
started the traditional way er,Ozu or just other company or
(19:54):
networks, we really have aunique positioning because of
the way We started, and the waythat we have organically grown,
I think it just gives us morecredibility, and it shows us and
it shows, you know, ourstakeholders that everybody has
a space in MSI. It's not justfor white guys. It's not just
for men. It's not just forwomen, it's for all of us who
(20:18):
want to take part in thisinclusion journey. And we all
help each other in various ways.
Umesh Lakshman (20:24):
Yeah, that's phenomenal. Because I love what
he said there is to be aninclusive male, you got to start
with listening to what you needto be implementing first, to
have more of not you. So that'sliterally how I see it. And one
of the biggest learnings that Ihad is as part of the MMI
(20:47):
process, you have theselistening sessions when you
start a chapter, because I knowI'm mentoring a chapter now. And
I was like, I don't even Ididn't even know that there was
a very structured approach togoing about doing that. And it
was one of those aha moments asto be like, okay, yeah, that
makes sense. We should maybestrategize around what the
community wants versus what wewant.
Antonette Ligons (21:08):
Right? Yes, bingo. That was one of the big.
Another challenge. You know, wewere talking about challenges
earlier, was the optics onhaving a whole male network. I
mean, when people first heard ofmF fi, they really got scared,
and I had someone tell me,Antoinette, you're really going
to put men in a room and havethem make decisions about
(21:29):
diversity? Are you crazy. And sooptically, that did not look
good, but what I convinced themwas, you know, just what we said
is, if they want theinformation, why not give them
to them in a structured form,where we can all learn, and if
they're okay, with, you know,having a woman, a woman lead the
program, then even more kudos tothem, let's not, you know, fight
(21:53):
that let's go with the tide andreally create something that's
sustainable. And that works foreveryone that wants to be
involved. And so we really hadto reposition that. But I think
that was one of the biggestchallenges, that started to be a
real success for us. Yeah.
Tania Escobar (22:09):
That's what resonates with me as well, in
going, living MMI, it's, it'snot designed to be an echo
chamber just for men, right?
Really, those decisions
Unknown (22:25):
that we have enough of those already,
Tania Escobar (22:27):
that will impact the work, the inclusion
ecosystem, really do have totake in the the feedback and the
inputs of those that will, itwill impact a release to center
them. So I think that'sextraordinary, and how this
network differentiates itself asan advocate, kind of network for
(22:50):
about within Cisco.
Umesh Lakshman (22:52):
You both briefly touched on this, and I'm gonna
put you on the spot. And maybethis is where the gloves are
coming off. Which is both of youare women leading a male ally
ship network. How did that go?
What were the brutal realitiesthat he faced as part of that
function? And what can men whoare trying to join MFA do
better? When we look atleadership from a non gender
(23:13):
oriented lens?
Antonette Ligons (23:20):
Good questions. For me, what I
initially thought was, there'sno way they're going to listen
to a woman. Talk about allyship, I had my own stereotype
about what I thought the menwanted to see, and how the how I
would be received. And I almosttalked myself out of being a
(23:41):
program manager a few timesinteresting. Especially when we
launched two locations that wereheavily male dominated like
India, I tried my best to get awhite guy to come in speak for
me to be my mouth to talk aboutmF fi on behalf of me. And it
(24:04):
never it didn't pan out. And Iwent there. And I was blown away
by the openness, by thewelcoming that I got by there.
They were like, thank goodness,someone from headquarters is
coming to talk about our issues.
They were will so the womenthere just welcomed another
(24:26):
woman who could reallyunderstand their unique
challenges. And I'm just gonnaput it out there. I don't know.
I think the men just appreciateit another brown skinned person
from headquarters really talkingabout their challenges. You
know, I wasn't I am a woman, andI'm sure there's some
differences, you know,differences. That that holds for
(24:48):
them, but I did not feel it. Ifelt so welcome. And so for me,
I think you know, as we'relaunching in these different
locations is very, veryimportant that we get out of our
own way. You know, we have ourown biases. And just because I'm
a black woman doesn't mean I'm,I'm not biased, or that I
(25:10):
understand bias very deeply. Youknow, I'm still just a person
who's learning and growing. Andso the mission for mF fi, if it
connects with you, it doesn'tmatter who you are, where you
are, the position you are in,there is a place for you there.
So yeah, that's that was myexperience and kind of just
(25:31):
trying to understand that thatunique dynamic.
Tania Escobar (25:36):
And then I'm so glad you said that, because I
just want to say I see you,because that feeling of imposter
syndrome is, it's so prevalent,even in myself, you know,
stepping into the role isbelieved like, it's, it's
daunting to say, okay, you willlead, you know, a large network
(25:57):
of men to try and really notjust influence the culture
within your own company, butit's a mindset change. It's a
culture change, right? That isvery daunting. But what I, the
flip side of that coin, is thatI realized through working with
such passionate people andhaving conversations is that men
(26:20):
feel imposter syndrome to rightmen have these insecurities
about the their impact and whatthey can do, right? So what I,
what I'm loving about thisopportunity is yes, it is
incredibly uncomfortable, tostep into this work to step into
this network. But at the sametime, hey, you're going you
(26:43):
probably have the samequestions. I have maybe a little
bit different perspective, menor women, but through that
insecurity, that's a commonalitywe have and I think we just, we
can start start there, right,that we can just have a
conversation, learn from eachother. with each other. Right,
be willing to because peoplewill make mistakes, but we're
(27:06):
honoring the pack that peoplewant to show up. And that's
huge.
Antonette Ligons (27:11):
Yes, yes. And I'm so glad you talked about the
whole fear, because, you know,we always try to get our
executives to really beauthentic and share their
stories, any person MMI becauseit's so helpful. But there's so
much fear, initially interferingin experience that didn't go
(27:32):
well for you and experience youdid not master. And so much of
that this inclusion work, thisdiversity work is that it's that
uncomfortable feeling of notbeing quite right, not being
quite accepted, and juststepping out on a limb. But the
more you do it, the more trustyou build with your team, the
(27:52):
more authentic you become, youknow, and be seen as, and the
more you get over that fear. Andit becomes just a way for you to
talk and express yourself. Andpeople are bonded to that they
really jive with that. And soit's more, you know, mimic mF
five and really build ourplatform on the listening,
(28:13):
helping men listen to others,and get to the point where they
want to share their experienceas well. And getting past that
fear of not knowing everything,that's okay. We don't always
have to have the answers forthese hard conversations, these
hard challenges that come up andtopics and issues. But the fact
that we're there and listeningand building trust, and just
(28:35):
being vulnerable with each otheris such a huge step in all of
us, for all of us. Butespecially for mF fi, it's
really, you know, helping usgrow together. So yeah, I'm glad
you brought that up. Thanks.
Umesh Lakshman (28:49):
Yeah, I think from a very general, maybe
shifting the lens a little bitand giving you my perspective is
when you're talking aboutimposter syndrome. And I've had
this conversation with a few menaround how culture drives
imposter syndrome as well. Youmentioned traveling to India,
India has a very strong likevery binary culture, right,
(29:12):
which is when I was growing up,I was either supposed to be an
engineer or a doctor or a loser.
Those were very that was a verydrastic, like Cliff dive at the
end of that conversation. Soit's it's it's it's a culture
which is driven me initially tothink that there was no room for
failure and iteration. So, forbike I have to get out of my own
(29:35):
echo chamber echo chamber ofgoing in and saying okay, I do
not know the answer. Like and Iam good enough, in some cases is
like, worse and I had to makestatements versus ask questions.
imposter syndrome sits in theland of questions, right? Am I
good enough? Am I am I qualifiedenough. A lot of that going on
(29:58):
in your echo chamber andshifting that from questions to
statements does that I am goodenough, right? I am very
qualified to get this and itdrove drove a lot of the initial
was as a personal transformationfor me, then I've seen that with
some others I've spoken to, thenwe've created a safe space for
(30:19):
like a moment. Yeah, I justthought I should share that with
both of you here as well.
Antonette Ligons (30:25):
It's very important for you to I'm glad
you did, because so many of uswhen we are in this space, we
think we're the only ones andlike, you know, Tonya mentioned,
we thought we were the only oneswith the whole imposter
syndrome. And for you as aseasoned executive to know that
you still go through that, asmany speeches that you give you
know that that's still achallenge for you. I think it's
(30:46):
another point to the whole MSImission. I mean, me as a woman,
I get something out of MSI, butI get something out of a woman's
group too. But I find that and Iget something out of the black
professionals group, but I findthat we have reoccurring themes,
we all are feeling, you know,the same challenges and have the
same aches and pain points. Sowhy not have these conversations
(31:07):
where we have theseintersectionalities kind of
criss crossing each other andinviting more conversations to
take place about things that wethought were different, but we
will probably find out we havemore alike than we do different.
So again, it's another platformfor why it's so important to
(31:28):
have MFA and other programs likethat available.
Umesh Lakshman (31:32):
I'm switching gears a little bit. Maybe give
us an example of things that youreally walk out of here saying,
Wow, that was great. That was anawesome outcome when it came to
diversity and inclusion. And I'msure in your journey here with
Cisco. And in the DI space. Youhad a few of those. So I'm
(31:52):
asking you to pick one, which ismaybe a tough one. But if
there's more than one, that'scompletely fine.
Antonette Ligons (32:00):
Yes. Okay. So this is probably this is why it
sticks with me because it was myvery first recruiting trip. And
we went to Grace Hopper. And,you know, Grace Hopper has got
the best of the best, brightestwomen technologists in the
country. 20,000 women from thebest universities, and you go
there and you try to hobnob withyou know, big companies and try
(32:21):
to get a package or get signedon. Cisco hosted a cocktail
hour, one night, and I wasthere, you know, picking up
resumes talking to some of thestudents. And I noticed an
African American lady, she'sjust sitting over to the side.
And she kind of eyed me when Ifirst came in, we kind of said
hi to each other. And then I'msitting at my table. And as soon
(32:42):
as I finish talking with oneperson, she comes over to me,
and she says I want to give youmy resume, but I want to tell
you right now, I have a 2.0 likea 2.3 I really struggled last
year at my college, she went toTexas a&m and she knows she had
an internship at GE but then shehad to quit, she had to take
(33:02):
care of her mom and her GPA justdidn't really show her true
potential. And I said, but Ijust had a conversation with
her, you know, and I can tellshe's really bright, smart girl.
And she eyed me out and youknow, had enough guts to come up
and have the conversation andhave that hard conversation with
me and not try to impress me andtell me something that she's
not. And so I took herapplication, and I set her up
(33:25):
with the interview. And sheended up getting hired in our
RTP office. And she sent me anemail to said Antoinette, thank
you so much. You encouraged me.
And I ended up getting a Ciscointernship and I'm so grateful.
Well, then she went on, Ifollowed her career on LinkedIn.
She went on to Price WaterhouseCooper and as a full time
Program Manager, she sent me ina LinkedIn message she said she
(33:50):
was picked to study at CarnegieMellon Hall as a fellow, she got
a graduate apprenticeship as afellow for Carnegie Mellon. And
I went, Wow. And that's becauseCisco was on her resume. That's
because you know, PriceWaterhouse was on a resume,
(34:10):
that's because we really hadaccess to give people
opportunities that they reallywouldn't have in a traditional
setting. And so, you know, forme, that's all it took for me as
somebody just to not see me in abox and see my potential and
offer that. And if I can get 100men to do that, if I can get
1000 men to do that if we canget 100,000 men to do that. Just
(34:32):
think of that impact that thatcould have for people's lives,
you know? Yeah, well, you knowthat for me that story and that
just happened to sent me thatemail for Carnegie Mellon just
about a month ago, and I wasjust like, almost in tears
because I've seen her fullcircle, you know? So yeah,
Umesh Lakshman (34:52):
that's awesome.
I think a lot of the biggestachievements when it comes to
things like the are somebodyBeing a part of somebody else's
journey?
Unknown (35:01):
Yes.
Umesh Lakshman (35:04):
And somehow influencing or doing something
that was a very pivotal point.
They're in their trajectoryoverall, like career or life or
something. Yes. And then theit's not a tangible
satisfaction, I feel it's moreof a, like the sleep well at
night kind of thing.
Antonette Ligons (35:26):
For me, it's all the hard day's worth it, you
know, and I
Umesh Lakshman (35:30):
go to bed with a smile. That's all sucky. And she
had But clearly, okay, great.
It's like, yeah, it's all agrain. And I know, you're all
stuck at home, and we're allstaring at four walls now. But
that was worth it. And you kindof go back and be like, Okay,
great. That was awesome. Yeah.
Now, you know, we have a shortamount of time. So I'm going to
(35:50):
jump into a broader topic here,which is around just 2020. The
landscape has changedphenomenally over the last
eight, nine months. And that'snot just around diversity and
inclusion, but it's, I would saywith the lens is broadened to
(36:11):
include social justice as well.
It's front and center now. Whatcould anyone do? any individual
right? So this could be you, me?
Tanya, anybody who's listeningto this? Dude, that is tangible.
Yeah, that can that can bringabout positive change. As it
(36:33):
relates to the
Antonette Ligons (36:35):
I thought three things that I like to tell
people, because you know, now isthe time where people want to
know, you know, they want to beactive allies, they want to
know, how can I help supportblack people? How can I help
help support people other thanme. So there's three things that
I like to do, I like to tellpeople, the first one is to
stand up, when you see aninjustice right then and there,
(36:56):
speak up for somebody use yourpower or your privilege to right
that wrong, right in in time,real time. The second thing is,
if you are in a position ofpower, please create
opportunities for peopledifferent than yourself. those
opportunities can be lifechanging for people, I mean, you
just really don't know what thatlittle decision you make, that
(37:18):
you may not even think about canreally impact someone's life.
And the last thing is teach yourkids how to be allies to people
that are different. Embracedifferences. If you have a kid
who's got you know, a personwith a disability in their
class, make sure your kid is inthat class, make sure your kid
is one of those helpers. Youknow, just actively be an ally,
(37:39):
mentor for your kid and watchyour kids grow up naturally
embracing diversity. So thoseare the three things I think
anybody can do. Yeah, I think
Umesh Lakshman (37:51):
the goal here is well, and as we kind of like
finish up and kind of close outfor the discussion was to kind
of learn more about yourjourney, right? Because I mean,
I feel like we could spend maybea full another 60 minutes and
we'd be still chipping away atit. One last commentary around
privilege. How do you defineprivilege?
Antonette Ligons (38:16):
privilege is a position that you have based on
something that gives you power?
Umesh Lakshman (38:30):
Yeah. Okay, there you go. Bingo. So the
reason I kind of put you on thespot there is because I wanted
that power word to come out.
Right is, is you would be amazedat how many things I thought I
was not considering privilegetill somebody kind of said like,
dude, your privilege. And I waslike,
Unknown (38:56):
All right.
Umesh Lakshman (38:57):
All right. I had one of those moments at better
man. I think Tonya was sittingnext to me when that happened to
somebody he said, Dude,education is privilege.
Unknown (39:09):
Yes,
Antonette Ligons (39:10):
sit in it. And that's the difficulty you ask
because we sit in it. So whenyou see it, I have privilege all
day long to my son just said,Mom, you know, we've been so
privileged to live through thispandemic and not really feel our
lives changed. What a privilege.
And I said, Wow, yeah. Wow. Sowe, yeah, everybody has a
privilege. You may not feel it,because you're in it. But I bet
(39:33):
you everybody has an advantage.
Umesh Lakshman (39:38):
Yeah. Tanya, did you have any questions for
Antoinette? Oh,
Tania Escobar (39:45):
I could keep her here for another hour. I'm sure
you have a lot of amazingstories with all the different
people that you work with andCisco, and just doing this work,
you know, how it reflects outinto the industry, right and
getting to connect with othercompanies and other thought
leaders on this, so I'll saythose questions for another
(40:06):
time. But I sincerely want tothank you for your willing, your
willingness, your investment,and your joy that you bring, you
know, as a fellow Cisco onion,but as a black woman, you know,
as a leader. You know, it's,it's been such a pleasure to
learn from you, and work withyou, and try and put these
(40:29):
bricks together for a foundationthat, you know, we can carry on
into the future years, so, sothat hopefully one day every
every corner of Cisco andsociety will have, you know,
infrastructure for folks to stepinto the advocacy and not feel
(40:49):
like it's not for them, or anextracurricular thing. So then
you Oh, thank
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