21. Rebooting Tech Culture - A Talk With Telle Whitney (Telle Whitney Consulting)

Listen and get insights into "Rebooting Tech Culture" in this talk with Telle Whitney. Telle is a Senior Executive Leader, an Entrepreneur, and a recognized Advocate on Women & Technology. She has over 20 years of leadership experience and was named one of Fast Company’s most influential Women in Technology. 

In this episode of the Women in Big Data Podcast, we talk about Telle's book "Rebooting Tech Culture: How to ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive". We explore and gain insights into Telle's 6 Cs framework - creativity, courage, confidence, curiosity, communication, community. Tune in and discover how you can apply these 6 Cs to your own Data & AI journey!

"The book is Rebooting Technology: How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive. And there's 6 Cs. It's built on this framework of 6 Cs, which is creativity, an innovative culture that is truly creative. Finding the courage to take risks. Building a culture of confidence where people speak their mind and speak their ideas. Embracing curiosity, so always figuring out new ideas. Learning to communicate because without communicating your ideas, you're not going to be able to create change. And then ultimately, community, because community is how we nurture ourselves in order to move forward"- Telle Whitney. 

• 1:37 - The Why of Telle's book: Rebooting Tech Culture - How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive
• 2:33 - Telle's 6 Cs framework - creativity, courage, confidence, curiosity, communication, community
• 5:25 - 6 Cs: the biggest barrier
• 6:23 - 6 Cs: the biggest catalyst
• 7:46 - The business case for culture investment
• 8:46 -  Measurements that actually move the needle
• 10:23 - Strategies that can make women in data and AI truly indispensable besides up-skilling and staying current
• 12:37 - AI code without a strong engineer in charge: more problems than solutions 
• 13:44 - Courage to take risks: look for startups that are doing interesting things
• 17:06 - Who's a woman in big data and AI that you admire and why?                   
• 17:34 - What is the best career advice you've ever received?                                 
• 18:06 - What three ingredients go into your career recipe?                                    
• 19:11 - Leaving an organization if it doesn't work for you is really important       
• 20:06 - Telle's message for the Women in Big Data Community

Guest Info

• LinkedIn: Telle Whitney

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:37 The why of Telle's book: Rebooting Tech Culture - How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive
• 2:33 Telle's 6 Cs framework - creativity, courage, confidence, curiosity, communication, community
• 5:25 6 Cs: the biggest barrier
• 6:23 6 Cs: the biggest catalyst
• 7:46 The business case for culture investment
• 8:46 Measurements that actually move the needle
• 10:23 Strategies that can make women in data and AI truly indispensable besides up-skilling and staying current
• 12:37 AI code without a strong engineer in charge: more problems than solutions
• 13:44 Courage to take risks: look for startups that are doing interesting things
• 17:06 Who's a woman in big data and AI that you admire and why?
• 17:34 What is the best career advice you've ever received?
• 18:06 What three ingredients go into your career recipe?
• 19:11 Leaving an organization if it doesn't work for you is really important.
• 20:06 Telle's message for the Women in Big Data Community
• 22:01 Outro

Transcript

[00:00:00] Intro: Hello, welcome to the Women in Big Data Podcast, where we talk about big data analytics and career topics. We do this to connect, engage, grow, and champion the success of women in big data. 

The book is Rebooting Technology: How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive. And there's 6 Cs. It's built on this framework of 6 Cs, which is creativity, an innovative culture that is truly creative. Finding the courage to take risks. Building a culture of confidence where people speak their mind and speak their ideas. Embracing curiosity, so always figuring out new ideas. Learning to communicate because without communicating your ideas, you're not going to be able to create change. And then ultimately, community, because community is how we nurture ourselves in order to move forward - Telle Whitney. 

In this episode, guest host Radhika, and I, Desiree, talk with Telle Whitney about her book, Rebooting Technology: How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive. Telle Whitney is a senior executive leader, an entrepreneur, and a recognized advocate on women and technology. She has over 20 years of leadership experience and was named one of Fast Companies most influential women in technology, 

Let's start!

[00:01:25] Desiree: Telle, welcome to the podcast. You are the author of the book, Rebooting Technology: How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive. Telle, why did you write a book and what is it about? 

[00:01:37] Telle: Well, it's lovely to meet. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. I'm a technologist, I'm a computer scientist, and I've worked with thousands of young women who are very eager to get into technology. And I watched the fire in their eyes as they thought about what was possible, and then in so many cases, I watched that fire burn out.

They would not really understand why it wasn't working for them, but they would leave often five years into the program. But I also met a number of executives that were doing it differently, that were creating great technology and creating cultures that were both innovative and inclusive. And I felt like there was something to say.

[00:02:20] Desiree: And what is the book about? Because I heard something about the 6 Cs. Is that a kind of framework or what is it? 

[00:02:26] Telle: Yes. 

The book is Rebooting Technology, how to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations where Everyone can Thrive.

And there's 6 Cs. It's built on this framework of 6 Cs, which is creativity, an innovative culture that is truly creative. Finding the courage to take risks, building a culture of confidence where people speak their mind and speak their ideas. Embracing curiosity. So always figuring out new ideas, learning to communicate because without communicating your ideas, you're not going to be able to create change. And then ultimately, community. Because community is how we nurture ourselves in order to move forward. And 

[00:03:10] Desiree: How did you come up with these 6 Cs? Is that something you have experienced during your career? 

[00:03:17] Telle: Every one of them, they wouldn't be in the book if I hadn't experienced in them in my career. There are ideas that I have talked about on an individual level for many years, but the real insight for me when I started to write this book is it's not just about me.

Having the courage to take risks is about creating a culture where everybody in your organization feels like they have the courage to take risks. 

[00:03:44] Desiree: Okay. 

And Telle, were you CEO or leading organizations where you implemented this framework? 

[00:03:51] Telle: For the last 15 years, I was CEO of the Anita Borg Institute, which is a nonprofit, and Anita Borg Institute created the Grace Hopper celebration.

It's a conference that brings together women. It grew from about 500 to 30,000 a few years ago, so it met a real need of these young women who attended. In that role as CEO of Anita Borg Institute. I certainly worked with executives at many companies. I mean, all the companies that you know about, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, those kinds of companies.

And they would send a lot of their people to attend the conference. And so that's really how I saw all of this happening. 

[00:04:34] Desiree: Well, thank you very much for that. 

So Radhika, go ahead. 

[00:04:37] Radhika: Yes.

Telle. I wanna build on what Desiree asked. Why now? 

[00:04:42] Telle: Well, like I said, I led this organization for many years. I stepped down at the end of 2017 and I was doing speaking.

I was working with companies, and I just felt like there was something to say as I had worked with so many young women and seen so many of them leave, and yet understanding that. There were executives all over the world that were doing it differently, and I wanted to tell their story. 

[00:05:10] Radhika: That absolutely makes sense.

And I wanna tune this for our community: of all the 6 Cs, what do you see as the biggest barrier? 

[00:05:19] Telle: Well, I think my biggest surprise in writing this book is the degree to which companies are not creative. Many companies adopt a command and control, which means that somebody at the beginning says, this is the way we're going to do it. Sets the goals, gives everybody marching orders, but if you really want true creativity, you're not gonna get it that way.

And I often think about Ed Catmull, who was at Pixar. He wrote this book called Creativity Inc. And in it he talks about how Pixar had to be creative. This is a creative job they were doing, and what was most important was to bring everybody to the table and to feel like their peers. You want to be able to create an environment where ideas surface and are listened to.

[00:06:09] Radhika: If we just actually flip it, creativity is the biggest barrier. What is the biggest catalyst that once it's unlocked can absolutely open doors? 

[00:06:19] Telle: There's two Cs that I would mention with regards to that. At the basis of my story is the courage to take risks. I see so many people, especially women. Who have a difficult time embracing their courage for taking the risk for what they want to do, and it's that courage to take risks that really creates change within the organization.

The other C that I will mention is community, because without community, you don't feel safe to be able to surface your ideas. Certainly when I arrived in Silicon Valley, one of my earliest desires was to create a community. And in fact, that's how I first met Anita Borg, who was a close friend of mine.

And just as an aside, I think that's why women in Big Data is so important because globally you've got all these groups that are geographically located and all the people who are in Los Angeles or in Belgium, Brussels, or Texas, they can come together and that really gives them some infrastructure in order to create change.

[00:07:29] Radhika: Absolutely.

[00:07:31] Desiree: Yes. 

I was wondering, when I talk to data driven executives, I always hear they want to see metrics. So how do I make the business case for culture investment when the payoff might take years and the costs are now? 

[00:07:46] Telle: Great question, and I think that many leaders grapple with that very question.

I've spent years telling leaders that there's a business case for diversity and inclusion where companies that really invest more in diversity and inclusion often have better financial returns, and I still believe that. I will say that in my experience, people create this change because there's something in their soul that says, this is what we need to do.

And if you look at organizations that are inclusive and innovative, it's because the leaders really believe in it. And in fact, the ones that do it because it's a checkbox and they've been told to do it, that usually doesn't work. 

[00:08:31] Desiree: Indeed. 

[00:08:32] Radhika: And when we meet technical leaders, individual contributors, many of them actually wanna support this, wanna impact change, but they're always struggling with what actions should I take?

What measurements will actually move the needle? 

[00:08:47] Telle: So, answering that question is why I wrote the book, because I do think that there's a set of actions. I think that many companies, they introduce ideas like ERGs, which are great. ERGs play a really important for the community. But to me, what really matters is training your pipeline of technical leadership.

And I spent a lot of time in one of the chapters about looking at something like a fellows program. You wanna ensure that you have a pipeline that's very diverse with a wide variety of people and that they. Can understand why it's important to contribute technically to the products of the company, and I really passionately believe that you wanna make sure that there's women that are part of that.

You really want to make sure that you have a broad set of people participating in your technical future. 

[00:09:39] Radhika: Do it like you mean it. Right? 

You know, we are all self swept away by what's happening with AI. And that impact is real, especially for many of our community members. When we think about their job security, it's not just the layoffs, but there are just new jobs that didn't exist before.

And I read somewhere that's about, the numbers are actually pretty staggering. 80,000 tech layoffs just in 2025. And women are about 1.6 x times more prone to face layoffs than men. The most common thing that I hear is: okay, be relevant, stay current, up-skill yourself. 

So this is a multi-part question. I'll start with the first one: besides up-skilling and staying current, what are some less obvious strategies you are seeing that can make women in data and AI truly indispensable? 

[00:10:30] Telle: Well, for a technical role, you have to be able to demonstrate contributions to your leaders. I mean, that's the fundamental aspect right now. Ai, nobody knows, and I know that there's all kinds of predictions and they're all over the place, and in many of their predictions from very well-meaning people are contradictory.

What I know from my years in working in technology is we don't yet know what this is going to look like, and so different companies are making different decisions based on their own predictions. So for example, I was at a evening event about a month ago, and a large company was talking about how they had made decisions to hire a lot more entry level engineers.

Because this next generation of engineers are AI native, and so they were raised to understand AI. So if you can bring in more of them, they might actually contribute more to your bottom line than others. I mean, let's be real. Many of these CEOs that are saying 'we gotta invest in AI', they're not using AI for their job. They're not that comfortable. They don't know. So when they're doing all these layoffs. They may, or may not, be making long-term decisions that are going to help them. Many of these companies over-hired during the pandemic. And so I believe they're sometimes using AI as an excuse to try and right set the number of engineers.

[00:12:05] Radhika: So, if I were to take away from that, what I'm hearing is: be flexible, and have a continued learning mindset. 

And you mentioned early career professionals and that certain industries are more open to actually hiring them for entry-level jobs. But we are also hearing some loud narratives from certain tech executives saying that I don't want entry-level jobs because AI can write the code.

[00:12:32] Telle: So everybody's saying different things. Nobody knows. And so some executives are saying: oh, I can get AI to write the code. My own personal belief is that code without a strong engineer in charge of developing that code, with the assistance of AI, they're gonna end up with more problems than they solve now.

People are trying to figure out what this means, and going back to your question, if you are trying to figure it out, be knowledgeable. And also you need to be flexible about the kind of jobs that you're taking. If it's a company that you really speaks to, you then just get in through the door and then prove that you can contribute and the rest will follow.

[00:13:19] Radhika: That ties back to courage. Technology is going to continuously evolve, but it's fine. Everything comes with instructions. You can learn it. 

[00:13:30] Telle: I was around during the dot-com bust in about 2000, and the predictions for what was going to happen. We're so far off, and yet companies like Google and Amazon, they were developing. They were quiet. Nobody knew about them, but during that time of the craziness, they were able to build Into something great. And if I was looking around for what to do next, I would look for those gems of things that are starting right now, because some of them will be great. 

There are people sitting in garages with ideas or just barely formed ideas, and some of them will be truly great. So, keep your eye out and stay flexible, as we said before, and understand what is going to revolutionize our world. And everybody's looking at OpenAI, but what's the other startups that are doing interesting things? 

[00:14:31] Radhika: Stay curious. Have a learning mindset. That's what I heard. 

[00:14:36] Desiree: What I hear you say is, Telle, add value. How did you make sure that you constantly during your career were adding value? 

[00:14:45] Telle: So, I'm an entrepreneur by nature. This idea about having the courage to take risks is something that I've embraced a fair part of my life. And so, I was driven to make a difference. And I didn't understand that this was about adding value to the companies. I was just so curious about the kind of products that we were making, that I showed up, and I contributed and I was recognized for that. 

[00:15:13] Desiree: So does that mean that you are saying you have the courage to create experiences and learn from these experiences and that will help you forward? 

[00:15:24] Telle: That's right. The courage to take risks you don't know how it's going to end up showing.

For me, it was really just saying, I'm going to do this. I went to a startup where we only had six months of runway in the bank. So we had no idea if we were going to even exist after six months, and in this case, we were able to secure additional funding and eventually sold the company. 

But sometimes failure, I mean, flat out failure when you take risks like that is probably the best education you could ever have, as long as you don't let it consume you. You really need to understand that the failure is part of the feedback to you about what to do next. 

[00:16:07] Desiree: Yes. 

And once you have experienced that, then you get more courage and then you can take more risks.

[00:16:13] Telle: One of the biggest risks I ever took was going to graduate school. I was an undergraduate. I hadn't planned on going to graduate school. I was introduced and I just decided to go for it. And so in your early twenties, that's a great time to take risks because you have a lot of runway. And so, you can try it and see how it works, and you have less mortgages and car payments and all the things that we end up saddled with as we move on in our life.

[00:16:44] Desiree: Yeah, that's true. 

So, I also have some lightning questions for you. So are you up to it? 

[00:16:50] Telle: Sure. 

[00:16:51] Desiree: Okay. 

The first one is, who's a woman in big data and AI that you admire and why? 

[00:16:57] Telle: I admire my very good friend, Jennifer Chayes. She is the Dean of Data Science at Berkeley and is creating a whole new school to focus on data science.

Jennifer was the head of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts for many years, and I have a lot of respect for her. 

[00:17:19] Desiree: Okay.

And then my next question is, what is the best career advice you've ever received? 

[00:17:25] Telle: My PhD thesis advisor was a man named Carver Mead, who was one of my most important mentors. And he always talked about going back to the science rather than getting caught up in the way of things. Look to really go back to the basics and stay focused on that. 

[00:17:44] Desiree: Really go back to the basis and stay focused on that. 

[00:17:47] Telle: Yeah.

[00:17:47] Desiree: Because it's easy to get lost in a lot of info. 

And the last one is, if we look at career like a recipe, what three ingredients go into your career recipe? 

[00:17:59] Telle: Okay, so I'm gonna start by saying one of my favorite sayings, which Nora Denzel told me: it's not who you know, it's not what you know, it's who knows what you know. And as engineers, we often don't like to communicate because we want to just do the work. And hope that we will be recognized for it. That doesn't work. So being able to communicate is really important. And in graduate school, my master's thesis advisor encouraged me to really talk about my work, and that was a big step forward. 

So that's one, courage to take risks is certainly the second one.

And then the third is about embracing pivots when they occur. I was a technology leader for many years, and then I pivoted and became a CEO of a nonprofit. And understanding that that can be a great career choice if you embrace it, it really mattered to me. 

[00:18:57] Desiree: I also understood, Telle, that sometimes you had the courage to go away at an organization because you felt it didn't match what you wanted.

[00:19:07] Telle: So I do think that leaving an organization if it doesn't really work for you is really important. 

The other day I was at an event and somebody asked about that Sunday evening blues, and one of the young engineers in my book, she talked about how on Sunday night she was dreading going to work the next day. And to me, that's a good indication that you're not in the right job. If you're really dreading going to work, then it's time to think about how to do it differently. And often you can move to a different role at the same company. You don't have to leave the company, but sometimes it's time to start exploring for a different role.

[00:19:45] Desiree: Yeah, that's true. 

[00:19:46] Desiree: So Radhika, do you have a last question for Telle? 

[00:19:50] Radhika: Well, I was gonna ask, what's your message for our community, Telle? 

[00:19:55] Telle: It really matters for you to be part of technology. If you think about what's happening. In the world. Technology is changing all of our lives. It's going to influence us in ways that we cannot even predict right now.

And most important is we need you. We need you to be part of that technology future. We need you to be inventing a different future. We need you to be holding the leaders accountable for delivering great technology that also improves the world. 

[00:20:35] Radhika: So we need you. Wonderful message. 

And if I can just add on to that, I think we have the incredible power to shape culture by how we show up for each other. Every time we amplify a colleague's idea, make a strategic introduction, or create opportunities for other women, we kind of building that ingredients for the inclusive tech culture that you talk about in your book. 

[00:21:00] Telle: I couldn't agree more. It's so important. You need to show up. So one of my favorite people, it's someone named Karen Catlin. And she does this Better Allies newsletter and she talks about five actions that Allies can take every week, and there's just a lot we can do to help others.

[00:21:21] Desiree: I absolutely agree. So Radhika, Telle, I want to thank you for being in this podcast and for sharing your insights, especially about your book. And for all the listeners who want to book, the title is: Rebooting Technology - How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive.

[00:21:41] Telle: Thank you, Desiree. Thank you Radhika. And I appreciate being here.

[00:21:45] Outro: Thanks for listening to the Women in Big Data Podcast. For more information and episodes, subscribe to the show or contact us via datawomen@protonmail.com.

Outro: Tune in next time!