• Host – Michele Heyward, Founder, PositiveHire
• Guest – Lynne Maureen Hurdle

Michele Heyward:         00:16                Welcome everybody. Thank you so much for joining myself as well as Lynne Hurdle-Price. My name is Michele Heyward, a woman of Color in STEM and entrepreneur. I am here today with Lynne Hurdle-Price as we discuss corporate culture gatekeepers. What is a gatekeeper? Who are gatekeepers? What are their roles in corporate America? How do women of color in STEM maneuver the workplace so they are successful in their careers? Lynne, tell the audience a bit about yourself.

Lynne H. Price:              00:53                Absolutely. Hello everyone. I am Lynne Hurdle-Price. I’m known as the conflict closer. The reason I’m known as the conflict closer is because I help people learn the skills to go within and to use outside with other people to resolve conflicts. I do that by helping you to really look at how you resolve it one step at a time. I’ve been 35 years in the work of conflict resolution and communication and have actually worked with leaders all over the world. I help them to really be able to communicate effectively, powerfully, productively and successfully no matter where they are. So I’m excited to be here to talk. I write for Psychology Today. I write specifically about breaking culture. And one of the very first articles that I wrote was about gatekeepers, cultural gatekeepers. And then recently I think Michele where we hooked up is around the article I wrote for Psychology Today about Google and cultural corporate gatekeeper.

Michele Heyward:         02:20                Yes, exactly that. It’s exactly where we connected. When I saw this article after the Google manifesto came out in and the engineer, the Google engineer, a former engineer I should say who had written it, Lynne could verify if he was a corporate culture gatekeeper with the things that he identified. When I read Lynne’s article in Psychology Today, it was like ding ding ding. They bridged together and I thought she would be perfect to bring to the community to discuss how we, women of color in stem come across gatekeepers, how to maneuver them and how to deal with them on our day to day activities in an office or whatever your job setting is. So Lynne, what can you define for us what is a gatekeeper?

Lynne H. Price:              03:17                Absolutely. So gatekeepers, I call them cultural gatekeepers because in corporates, and let’s say in corporate, there’s a culture right to corporate. Unfortunately there, when you talk about culture, you talk about something that a lot of people feel needs to stay the same. And so it is not any different outside of business when it comes to culture than it is inside of business. So a cultural corporate gatekeeper is someone who really wants the culture to stay the same and feels that it is their job to remind you of what the culture is, how you are breaking it, and why that’s not going to be acceptable to them. And a lot of times they’ll even say even to the wider a culture that no one is really in favor of the way that you are trying to break culture. The truth is just by being a woman of color in stem and even in corporate in general, for some of them you are breaking the culture. Just by your very presence, so you may not have had to do anything but show up.

Michele Heyward:         04:39                Yes, it’s there. For some of us, showing up is the hardest part because when you walk into that culture, it may not be welcoming. They say diversity and inclusion, they’re diversifying, but they didn’t do the inclusion part very well, which should have been first. Right, but that’s a whole other discussion.

Lynne H. Price: One that I want in on when you do it.

Michele Heyward:         05:02                it’s probably coming up next month, so we’ll talk about that. When we look at that gatekeeper now and you’re telling us they don’t want the culture to change, but with us being there, it is. It has now changed what have some signs that we are encountering a gatekeeper?

Lynne H. Price:              05:24                What are some signs that we’re handling or encountering a gatekeeper? Well, one, they want to educate you on how things are done here and not, I’m not talking about someone who’s there to train you and or orient you. I’m talking about someone who wants to pull you aside to let you know how things are done here. That’s number one. That’s a sign. The second thing is they’re inflexible. They insist that the way things have always been done as the way that that things should continue be done. And then they want to teach you how to fit in. I saw someone’s comment who said, uh, they don’t even acknowledge my presence. And that is also a sign because anyone who really appreciates that you are there kind of at least say hello good morning. So the fact that your very presence indicates to them that you’re someone that they should not even acknowledge, that’s a sign that you run up against a corporate cultural gatekeeper.

Michele Heyward:         06:41                I want to run this by you. This, this is another one I’ve run into the are very helpful, not just showing you how things are done, but they want to help you with your career. But they don’t want you to go down a career path you want to go. They want you to go down this other career path and you’re like, well that’s not what I want. Oh, I’ve helped other women and people of color go that way. And it’s like, Oh really? So you start to pay attention. They don’t want you to go to the path we want to go. And for a lot of us, meaning women and people of color, it’s the more technical route they’re pushing us away from, the more they’re pushing us towards the softer skill set. And that’s fine if that’s where we want to go. And we’ve told them that. But if we’ve told them we want to go this other more difficult route that is still white male dominated or probably very male dominated, they’re pushing us a different direction. They’re very helpful. They’re not domineering, but they’re giving you resources to the other path. “Oh, you should sign up for this eight week course. Have you talked to HR about taking this new training class to get the certification.” So they’re giving you all this information and you’re like “Oh wow, nobody’s ever done this for me”. But they’re still a gatekeeper because they’re pushing you off to where they want you to be. Not to where you want to be.

Lynne H. Price:              08:06                That’s right. And you want to really be aware of what’s happening because part of what’s happening is they may think that they’re being helpful. They may genuinely think that they’re being helpful. The other thing is that they may really be threatened by you wanting to go down a very different path. So how you approach that particular kind of gatekeeper is really important because it is possible that at some point they could be helpful to you in the way that you want to go or at least support your choice in that. But you really do have to stand up to what they’re doing to push you in the direction that they want you to go in. But you want to do it in a way that doesn’t alienate them as much as possible. Okay, because we also have to be true to ourselves. Having been in corporate, it’s a dance. It’s not easy to be able to stand up for yourself, but also in a way that uses those soft skills they’re talking about that keeps them on your side.

Michele Heyward:         09:28                Right. That’s the balancing act I think a lot of us have because you don’t realize they are gatekeepers. So what happens when we don’t balance that? Now it’s more of an adversarial thing. Well, I’m not helping you. You didn’t do what I wanted you to do. So you’re on your own. What are we to do now that they’re on the other side of the gatekeeper realm? You know, the angry side.

Lynne H. Price:              09:59                First of all, I find that part of what happens for us is that we get triggered and our buttons get pushed. Some of that is because we are not standing in our own power and presence of ourselves. We are not always sure that we should be here. You gotta be sure that you should be here, whether or not the conditions are what you want them to be. What you’re standing sure in is that I earned this, I deserve this, I know what I’m doing and I am supposed to be here. That’s number one. You’ve got to walk in the door with that everyday. So if that means you have to sure yourself in the morning before you go in, make sure you have a daily practice of standing strong in yourself and walking into that office with that presence.

Number two, if you have good communication skills, you really want to try to have a conversation with that person one more time. See if you can understand what their actions are about. If they’d become an adversary. Why it is that they feel perhaps that you had done something to them and how you might clear the air and move forward together at least in peace and peaceful coexistence if not with them on your side. Conversation is really important. We do a lot of assuming. We assume we know why they’re doing and what they’re doing without asking, particularly if they were at one point on our side so to speak. Now they’re our adversary. Then we make lot of assumptions because the fear is that we don’t want to go to them now. You really do need as much as possible to be that person that’s known as the communicator. You want to be known as someone who will try to communicate with you and have a conversation in times of conflict rather than pull back and hide. Because if there’s at least one person there who sees you as that, then that person can potentially back you up. When someone says that they didn’t want to try or whatever accusation they put out there, you need at least one ally who knows who you are. Someone who can say that’s not really how they are. I know that they’re a person who communicates.

Michele Heyward:         12:41                Do you have any communication resources that we could look into? Because not everybody is a great communicator.

Lynne H. Price:              12:50                Yes, not everybody is a great communicator. I certainly do a lot of work around communication, but absolutely! “Difficult Conversations” is a great book. If you asked me the author, I honestly don’t remember, but I do know that “Difficult Conversations” is a book that really will help you to begin to get some skills. Absolutely. I think that one of the things that you want to look into also is what does your company offer? Do they offer any kind of professional development around communication, particularly communication in conflict? I think it is just critical that we get that kind of a workshop of information and really practice it. Because if you don’t, then you are not really going to feel confident in approaching anybody. I don’t care what the situation is, but in particular when it’s a conflict situation and people who are really skilled at mind games really, they know how to communicate very well when it comes to that. They may not know how to communicate when it comes to resolving conflicts well, but they know how to communicate the game that they’re playing. And so when you are up against someone who is strong in that and you don’t have good communication skills, then you’re going to feel like, I can’t do this and I’m not going to approach this person.

One of the things that I will share right off the bat is listen more than you speak because a lot of times when we get into a conflict situation, we often interrupt the person. Then we begin to take the conversation in the direction that we wanted to go. What we missed by interrupting is what exactly is their point. What exactly is this conflict about for them. So that when we then speak and respond, we’re responding to that rather than taking it in a whole different direction of what we think they mean by what they say.

Michele Heyward:         15:11                Absolutely. My bad when I agree, sometimes people are good at one level of communication but not another. When we go about our day to day, we looked at how to communication. We’ve looked at the definition of a gatekeeper. You brought up something about preparing ourselves before we go into the workplace. What are some tips that you have for everybody to prepare mentally to walk into that workplace with gatekeepers?

Lynne H. Price:              15:45                Absolutely. Well, number one, silence is such an important and vital tool. Before I, I’m always, if I get up in the morning, I have to have silence because I need to tune in to what is going on for me. If this is, I worked in a very hostile environment and didn’t know any of this, then I can tell you the kinds of things that went on in my mind before I got to the office. I was so burdened and I was so negative. I was so sure of how bad the day was going to be that it couldn’t help but manifest itself. Because that’s what I was preparing myself for. So silently when you’re up in the morning, really sit with what you’re feeling, what feelings are coming up and why do you think those feelings are coming up? If you have some kind of a meditation practice, prayer practice, do yoga, work out at all or if you can get any of that in in the morning, even 10 minutes, will bring out hormones that can actually lift you up for your day.

If you have affirmations to say to yourself that really lift you up, then that’s important to go through your strengths. What do you bring? You are there because you bring important things! It’s not just the technical skills, but who are you as a person and what do you bring. Then focus on if there’s one thing that you can do in that day that actually assists someone else and get your mind off of yourself. That’s another way that you can really stand tall in who you are. Be the person that that says good morning and smiles no matter what. Yes, and make that your goal for the day. Then when things hit you, if someone really does something and hit you the wrong way, practice some breathing. Breathing techniques are the most important overlooked skill that we have. When you are breathing correctly, which is really belly breathing, when you are breathing correctly, it actually sends the breath and the oxygen to all of your organs, so they begin to function properly. And if you think it’s just a small thing, I can tell you that I was sitting in my doctor’s office and she was going to put me on medication for blood pressure. She said you can’t leave, I can’t let you leave here with that high blood pressure. So you figure out what you’re going to do in this next 10 minutes because you’re getting the medication. And I sat there, hold myself into silence, tuned into what was going on and I was really nervous. I could feel the feelings coming up. And I began 10 minutes of belly breathing, breathing in five seconds in, holding for two and then breathing out five seconds. She took my blood pressure and it was normal. I tell you, it was the first time I ever did that to try to do something like that. But I’m telling you that the breath has power over us and we need to use it several times throughout our day.

Michele Heyward:         19:34                Absolutely agree. I know when I was in a hostile work environment, like you said, one thing that worked for me was to listen to music. I had to play it on my commute to work. And even then, like you said, having that moment I would park and I would sit there. Then I would go in. I may not have been smiling, but we generally had a joke or maybe not when I would come in. But what I’ve found that once I changed how I came in the door, it impacted other people. I started saying, this is where I’m going to grow. This is the growth opportunity. Meaning when you’re in a rough space, a rough time, it’s when you grow the most. It’s when you have the best lessons of your life or some of the better lessons in your life. So I had to change my mindset when I went in everyday. So when that happened, when I started speaking it, other people would come back like, hey, such and such said this when we were out the other night. Michele would be proud because then I started speaking it so much until it was changing other people’s mindset. I mean I worked at a place where literally one of my coworkers would say every single day I quit, I’ll see you. I quit. I’ll see you tomorrow. Exactly. That’s how bad it was when somebody is quitting every single day. I quit. It became a joke for years because they quit like everyday. Like, yeah, but that’s how rough it was. It’s like what do you do? And so you’ve given us great tools and understanding the work environment with the corporate gatekeepers, how to go internal to ourselves to prepare for that workplace, how to engage with them using communication, some great communication tips, some great resources. What would you like to tell everybody as we wrap up?

Lynne H. Price:              21:47                I would love to tell you that I’d love for you to come and check me out at LynneMaureenHurdle.com. Sign up. I have some offers there that are free that you can absolutely take advantage of. Get on my list and receive my blog. Check me out at Psychology Today, breaking culture and you know today is the first day of my “Soul of Conflict” telesummit, the impact of bold leadership. I would love for you to go to Soulofconflictsummit.com even though day one is already underway, the conversations are sent to your inbox every day. It’s seven days of powerful conversations with leaders who use the energy of conflict to challenge, inspire and change the way that we lead. Get in for free! It’s free and you won’t miss the rest of them. If you come in today, I’ll make sure you get day one, which is me really talking about how and why leaders need to embrace conflict. It’s just really incredible conversations. I hope folks will check it out.

Michele Heyward:         23:15                I am definitely sharing this information. Thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate the information. It Is definitely needed for women of color in stem working in a hostile work environment or how to deal with gatekeepers. Everybody else stay tuned. We have much more coming or I have much more coming next month in November as we look at equal payday for Latinas. We will be looking at STEM Day all in November. So stay tuned. And I will be sending you updates and information for those events. Thanks everybody for joining and I’ll talk to you next time.