The name of this summit alone caught my attention so I definitely wanted to check it out. Having gone to so many diversity and inclusion summits, workshops, gatherings, fireside chats, meetings, groups, none of them had the word 'culture' in the headlines. While culture may have been discussed at some point during the event, to 'lead in' with culture was very intriguing to me and the event did not disappoint. When you have presenters whose title are "Chief Heart Officer {Claude Silver at Vaynermedia} it became even more clear to me that the speaker line-up at this summit was very targeted to those companies who understood it's a new day and way to communicate diversity and inclusion. Knowing it would require creating a brave and safe place for employees to really have the opportunity to come to work as their true authentic self in a judgment free zone.
I was most intrigued with the intent of ensuring there was a healthy dose of 'engagement' among attendees and there was nothing short of that during this 2-day adventure. From many high-5s in celebration of what people shared with one another to true and sincere conversations about what is really pulling on the heartstrings of someone given their work environment experiences. Yes, people really shared those secrets and their listening buddy supported fully.
Hung Pham, Founder, started Culture Summit San Francisco in 2014, out of a desire to solve his own problems with disengagement. Hung never worked in HR or organizational development but it's interesting that he started his career as an engineer. The summit's mission is: "We believe in empowering employees to build the culture they want to work in with a little something called T.L.C." Pham says, "Diversity and inclusion needs to be constant and intentional" and he made it a mission to go beyond gender and ethnicity during this summit. . Here are two milestones that were reached in the planning of this summit: The 50/50 pledge was taken to ensure that more than half of the speakers at Culture Summit were women and a partnership with SheWorx was developed. This is an organization for female leaders that is devoted to tackling the biases and harassment that continue to pervade Silicon Valley culture. https://www.culturesummit.co/
From scanning the room, I would guess the majority of attendees were under 35 while there was a healthy crowd of over 40 which was a great mix of energy. The climate right now has a lot of conversation around millennials and their views on culture, diversity, inclusion and they are certainly changing the pace and feel in this area. For them, it's foreign to hear anything around being a 'culture fit' in an organization, but rather millennials are about being a 'culture contributor' to the company. This generation is also the least bit interested in talking about work while at work, but rather they are much more interested in talking about life, love, hobbies, interests, travel, etc. Definitely this leads to understanding the 'culture' of who you're working with and throwing that 'run of the mill' conversation out the door.
Sometimes we just need to go back to the basics to remove the complexity of how to work and live with each other. Let's just 'be nice' to each other and see how far that goes. I would bet it goes a very long way. And go!