DIRECT TALK(VISION VIBES)

Draft transcript

Alex Steullet / Host:

I'm Alex Steullet, and this is Vision Vibes. This story was originally broadcast on television as part of NHK WORLD-JAPAN's interview series Direct Talk.

You know, when it comes to business, Asian people are always so…

Don't worry, I wasn't planning on finishing that sentence. But I bet you've already heard some similar remarks at your workplace. Someone referring to a diverse and broad group of individuals as if they were all the same.

Stereotyping affects people all around the world, and can be especially detrimental to individuals from minority groups.

Today's guest has dedicated her career to undoing harmful stereotypes. Global leadership strategist and executive coach Jane Hyun specializes in helping Asian Americans receive the workplace recognition they deserve.

Despite statistically high levels of education, Asians in America tend to be disproportionately overlooked for promotions. They're seen as lacking leadership qualities, and spend longer on average in junior positions. Jane calls this phenomenon, "The Bamboo Ceiling."

Where did the bamboo ceiling come from, how do we break through it, and what happens when we succeed at building a more diverse workplace? Let's join narrator Hana Barnes and find out on today's episode of Vision Vibes.

Hana Barnes / Narrator:

Asian Americans are widely recognized as the fastest-growing, best-educated ethnic group in the United States.

Yet, they are less likely to be promoted in corporate America.

Global leadership strategist and executive coach Jane Hyun coined the term "bamboo ceiling" to describe the barriers Asian Americans face, in her bestselling book "Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling".

Since its publication, she has helped corporations recognize the untapped talent pool represented by Asian Americans. Her guidance led one company to achieve 100 million dollars in incremental revenues.

Jane Hyun:

Asian talent can bring a tremendous amount of cultural capital to the organization, insights into working in a global business stage, and, you know, a tremendous amount of latent potential that the organization can really benefit from if they can understand and realize their value.

Hana Barnes / Narrator:

We asked Jane Hyun to explain the root causes of barriers, preventing Asian Americans from reaching leadership roles and how to overcome them.

Jane Hyun:

The bamboo ceiling is a combination of factors, actually. It's a combination of organizational and cultural factors that impede the career progress of Asians in the workplace.

When I first started doing research for the book, I interviewed a hundred executives in a variety of backgrounds to understand what were some of the journeys that they went through from entry-level, starting in a company, all the way to becoming a senior executive, and I found that there were three basic stages that you had to go through.

The first stage was about reliable producer, second stage was about building relationships and credibility, and the third stage was really about having organizational-wide impact, being an influencer. And what I found was that women and people of color, in general, tended to spend longer in the early stages, and Asians tended to spend a lot longer in that first stage. Not necessarily because they couldn't be a leader, but I think there are systemic beliefs sometimes, that leadership should look a certain way, or sound a certain way.

And so, when you have American companies, they are used to seeing, perhaps, a white male model of leadership, right, because those are the ones who've been in leadership for many years, and so, if you see folks that lead differently, that express themselves differently and communicate differently, there's less of a comfort level with that, as well.

Hana Barnes / Narrator:

A recent corporate survey revealed that Asian Americans occupied only 3.7% of board positions at Fortune 500 companies. This is in contrast to the fact that they represent 7.2% of the general population, with more than half of over 25 year olds achieving college degrees.

Jane Hyun:

And then there are other studies that have been done that kind of looks at the dynamics of what happens, as well. So, Coqual did a study about a year ago called the Belonging Study, and they found that Asian women, actually, had the lowest levels of belonging. So, belonging is about how connected you feel to a company, how much you feel you've been supported, that you feel like you are fully engaged with them.

So, there's a lot of different factors that go into it. But for the work I do, which is working with companies to do leadership consulting, it is really looking at how the dynamics is impacting Asians in the workplace, how is it impacting them on the way to the top, what are some of the barriers and challenges that organizations need to know about so that organizations can do something about them, right, managers can do something about them. But also, what do Asians need to know so that they can control their careers and manage their careers going forward.

Hana Barnes / Narrator:

In the United States, Asian Americans have often been labeled as "the model minority," exemplifying success through hard work.

Hyun thinks that this concept dating back to the 1960s civil rights movement, is a myth that has actually worked against career advancement.

Jane Hyun:

The media used that Asians as sort of an ethnic group to pit them against other minority groups to say, "Look, if you work this hard, you can be successful, you can go to college, and you can be educated," right? And it was used as a wedge, to keep Asians from being part of that conversation.

Because what it assumes is that Asian Americans are this high-achieving, successful demographic, they don't need any assistance, that they've overcome the barriers to be successful, it sort of makes them invisible, in the workplace, and so when you have-- in corporate America, there are diversity initiatives that are going on, there are initiatives that are there to advance women, advance people of color, advance various marginalized groups who have not been as quickly advanced in the organization, and so, unless you actually demonstrate that there is a need, look at the numbers, you know, are your Asians developing, are they making it through the system? Yes, you are hiring them, perhaps, in your entry-level class, but are they developing, are they getting opportunities, are they being mentored and sponsored, are they moving into different roles where they're getting more responsibility? When we're not asking those questions and we're not highlighting those challenges, they just get ignored.

Hana Barnes / Narrator:

Hyun also points out that the cultural values of Asian Americans can influence how they behave in organizations, even if they were born and raised in the United States.

Jane Hyun:

One thing that impacts how we do things and how we behave are deeply held beliefs and proverbs that have guided our behaviors, and one proverb, that's a Chinese proverb is "the loudest duck gets shot." I think a Japanese proverb, similar, is "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down." The concept that we should be more similar, and not create any waves. But there's a U.S. proverb that is different, which says that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". Right? " The squeaky wheel gets the grease", and what does that mean? It means if you want something changed, if you want to make a statement, you have to speak up, right? You can't just let things happen and go with the flow.

So, I think, fundamentally, those are very different ways of thinking and doing. Those cultural values have an impact on how you navigate in an organization.

Hana Barnes / Narrator:

Jane Hyun grew up in two cultures. Born in South Korea, she immigrated to the United States with her family when she was 8 years old. In school, she immediately recognized the differences.

Jane Hyun:

Going to school in Korea, it's a very large classroom, with like 55 kids and 1 teacher, it's very quiet whereas here, it was a little smaller, and it was also not very quiet, you know? It was a very loud classroom, and lots of kids speaking out and disagreeing with the teacher and all of that, and I just thought "wow, they are being so disrespectful," and it's just a very different environment.

Hana Barnes / Narrator:

She adapted to the American way of life. After graduating from an Ivy League university, she started working for a global investment bank. She wanted to make an impact in the organization but soon discovered a cultural barrier of her own.

Jane Hyun:

I don't think it became an issue until I started working, though. I think that's where I had to really understand that there were different rules, for working. I think one of the things that really kind of showed me that was maybe the second year that I started working.

We were working in a group, where, it was, my manager, who was kind of the head of the group, and then we had about 9 or 10 people who were analysts that were working in his group. And I remember seeing a colleague of mine being very comfortable, just going into his office and talking, and all of that. And she would do that for 20 minutes, you know, once a week, or whatever. And we worked a lot, in those days, like I worked like 80 hours a week, just because we had so much quantity of work that we did, I mean I was young in my career, I wanted to do a good job, work really hard, but I would always wonder, like, "Why does she spend time doing that?" Right? Because I felt like, "Why can't you do more work?" "Why couldn't you put your head down, and get more spreadsheets done, or your analysis completed?" And so, I asked her one day during a meal that we had, I was like, "You know, I'm just curious, like, why do you, you know, when you go into the office, what do you guys talk about, like, we have so much work to do, and you're not being very efficient, you know? You're not working very hard." Because for me, working hard and that work ethic and being--I'm here to work, I'm not here to play, was so drilled into me, culturally, to be good at what I was doing, and what she said to me, I remember to this day, was just very memorable and compelling. And she said you know, "Yeah, you know, we talk about a lot of things, and you know, some of the times we talk about the clients that we're working with, and status of projects, and different milestones we're hitting with that, but half the time we just shoot the breeze." And I thought, "Wow, so half the time you just shoot the breeze," meaning, they just talk about, you know, sports, or family, whatever it is going on, and I thought, "Wow, I didn't know you can have that kind of rapport with your manager." Because instilled in me at that point was like "Wow I had a tremendous amount of respect and power distance for him, and I didn't feel as comfortable just talking about that, of course I felt comfortable talking about work and that kind of a thing, but having an informal rapport was something that I wasn't used to. But she was saying, "Yeah, I mean at some point, you know, I want to move into other roles, and I want him to understand what my career development interests are, and my aspirations and, yeah, I want him to know other aspects of myself, too."

So, every time from that point on, it was a big lesson for me and I internalized, I need to develop rapport with my senior leaders. Because unlike in an Asian setting where they might come to you and offer their assistance, in the US you have to take initiative like you have to go and get there, and that was expected. And if I didn't do that, I was missing out.

Hana Barnes / Narrator:

In the hope of helping companies to be more inclusive and culturally responsive, Hyun started her own consulting business in 1998. She has developed a program for corporate leaders to increase what she calls "cultural fluency".

Jane Hyun:

Cultural fluency is the ability to shift your mindset and also be very effective with people who are different from you. Right, it's one thing to say, "I value diversity, and that's a very important philosophy for our company, and it's a value that we want to instill in the organization." It's another thing to be able to be fully flexible and be very effective with people who are different from you. Right? That requires thinking about things differently. It requires knowing how to resolve conflict in different ways. It requires knowing how to communicate with different types of people. It requires knowing that if you see something that you don't understand, you need to ask, to be humble enough to say, "I don't understand, I want to understand better." And so, those kinds of cultural skills are not always things that managers know, even when they start in a company. Even CEO's don't know it, right?... They could have been working for 30 years and it's not something they may have practiced. And so, I think that was something that I really wanted to build. You know we really need to build leaders who can be effective at working with people who are not like them, not just people like themselves.

I think if you are fully able to connect to all of the full diversity of your workforce, you can have more innovation.

Hana Barnes / Narrator:

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, hate crimes against Asian Americans have skyrocketed. In response, the "Stop Asian Hate" movement emerged, renewing the call for more diversity in the workplace.

Jane Hyun:

I think until very recently, many of the companies that I work with, many of the corporate leaders that I talked to said, "I didn't realize that Asians faced any discrimination or bias." I think it has come to a new awakening of an understanding of that. And to be honest with you, many of my colleagues and friends who are of Asian descent, they never actually get to talk about these issues with their friends and colleagues until very recently as well. So, you know, many of them confessed to me like, "Yeah, this is the first time in my workplace that we were invited to discuss this, you know, it was open forum for listening, and it was something that the company and organization really cared about." So, in some ways, I think, yes, the awareness has been there, but to a certain degree, I think there's also still that concept that you know, Asians don't really need any help, you know? They don't really have any challenges, per se. So, there's a lot of factors that go into it, you know? And there's all these beliefs around it, but there's also sometimes our reluctance not to speak up about some of the challenges, and I think this year really kind of blew it out to say, "Hey, we have to speak up," because otherwise, you know, we're gonna get hurt, and we have been hurt, and we can't ignore the pain that's been happening to our community.

Hana Barnes / Narrator:

We asked Jane Hyun to write the principle that guides her, in helping Asian Americans break through barriers.

Jane Hyun:

I wrote "what larger purpose could you contribute to in the future by taking a tiny step today?"

You know, sometimes a journey seems very long and daunting, and too big, but there's always something you can do today that takes you just a little bit closer to it.

I think sometimes we get…, we stop learning, right? You know, we kind of feel like, "Oh, you're good at this and you're not good at that," and so we stop growing in certain areas, and I think in order to really grow and break through any kind of a ceiling, bamboo ceiling included, we have to continue to grow and continue to have that mindset to develop ourselves in that way.

Alex Steullet / Host:

What larger purpose could you contribute to in the future by taking a tiny step today? It's such a simple question, but when we think about it seriously, it can dramatically change the way we live our lives.

For Jane, her larger purpose is achieving a more connected, fair and understanding world. Her first step toward realizing that was identifying a problem: a lack of mutual understanding between Asian and Western cultures. Then she took another step. She founded a consulting firm. And another step. She wrote a book. And she's taken many more steps since.

While she probably won't be able to solve such a massive social issue on her own, her work has already had a positive impact on so many lives. And that's what matters. Not if you achieve your end goal, but all the good you were able to do along the way.

How about you, what tiny steps can you take today? What's your larger purpose? For me, I'm going to start by trying to lose some weight. Oh, and also do my best to help make these podcasts even better.

That's it for today's episode. Thank you for listening. You can find the transcript, as well as our other stories, on the NHK WORLD website. I'm Alex Steullet. Join us next time for more mind-expanding insights from inspiring people on Vision Vibes.