Finding Courage and Confidence with Women Talk Design

What I learned about creating safe spaces that help our teams grow and thrive

As a woman of many intersectionalities, I have experienced my fair share of breaking through barriers and shaking down stereotypes to find the courage within to show up unapologetically as my authentic self. It’s still an ongoing journey for me, but one that I feel more confident and comfortable exploring — not just for my own well-being but to lead and pave the way for others too. That’s why I’m proud and honored to be a part of an organization that values and sees the importance of addressing DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) from various angles.

We, at Salesforce, hold equality as a core value. From celebrating the #PowerofBlackDesigners, to our equality initiatives around hiring and retention, and our ongoing efforts to adopt inclusive practices, we are always striving to do better. We still have a long way to go before our company is reflective of society. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this challenge, but we are committed to continuing to learn and grow.

One of the ways we’re looking to address issues of inequality is by focusing on the experiences of women and non-binary folks in the workplace. To that end, our UX Ops team partnered with a wonderful organization called Women Talk Design (WTD) to facilitate a series of workshops. In 2013, Christina Wodtke founded WTD because she was tired of being the only woman speaking at conferences. Today, the Women Talk Design team is still elevating women and gender non-binary future leaders in design and tech.

The five workshops offered were:

• Take the Lead with Sara Wachter-Boettcher
• Public Speaking Essentials: Storytelling
• Design Your Talk Topic
• Present with Confidence
• Designing Virtual Meetings For Everyone To Be Heard

Speaking up, whether it’s presenting to leadership or sharing in a meeting, can be a vulnerable act. As Salesforce UX designer Amber Bouabdallah shared, “Confidence is a practice; it’s a muscle that needs to be developed over time.” These workshops offered a space to help us develop our confidence and then take that muscle memory out into our daily work.

As a Design Program Manager at Salesforce, I both helped put together these workshops and was a participant, and I found these experiences to be unique opportunities for people to learn how to become leaders in design. The big take-aways for me were the skills, worksheets, new connections to my coworkers, and the confirmation that the struggles facing women and non-binary folks at work are real and worthy of our attention.

For this article, I got to interview the CEO of WTD, Danielle Barnes, along with four women who attended the various workshops: Amie Levasseur, Madhavi Jagdish, Sophia Dias, and Amber Bouabdallah. Here’s what I learned about the challenges facing women and non-binary employees, the value of bringing in outside organizations, and how to create safe spaces that help us all grow and thrive.

There are many challenges facing women and non-binary folks in the workplace today.

This may seem obvious, but it’s important to start by acknowledging what women and non-binary people might be going through at work. There may be a lot of great folks who are true allies, but that doesn’t change the fact that we still have certain challenges day-to-day. Below is in no way a comprehensive list, nor do these challenges only apply to women and non-binary people. But these are a couple of points that came up during my interviews with workshop attendees:

• Institutional structures and legacy attitudes about women in the workplace exist. I spoke to Amie Levasseur, who is a mom and senior manager in product design. She shared that although her husband is the primary caregiver, people will still ask her questions about the day-to-day tasks with her kids as if she should know. “It creates a sense of guilt. And I can’t help but wonder if our genders were reversed, would my husband receive the same treatment?”

Sophia Dias with her son.

• Imposter syndrome can be inhibiting. In the Presenting with Confidence workshop, we spoke candidly about imposter syndrome. Many of the participants shared that sometimes they have doubts about belonging or wonder if their ideas are valued. Levasseur said that she aims to reframe this thinking by “Taking control of the way you think and talk about your role. I am equal, I belong here, and I have ideas and value to contribute. That mental shift has been hard.”

Beyond shifting our mindset, it’s important to acknowledge that imposter syndrome is due to systemic bias. Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey are doing great work to uncover these biases. In their article “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome” they share, “The answer to overcoming imposter syndrome is not to fix individuals, but to create an environment that fosters a number of different leadership styles and where diversity of racial, ethnic, and gender identities is viewed as just as professional as the current model.”

Sophia Dias, Director of UX, in her home office.

Outside organizations can bring a lot of value to this work.

There are so many reasons for bringing in an outside organization to facilitate workshops for teams. Investing in our partnership with WTD allowed us to alleviate internal team members from the burden of additional work beyond the scope of their role. It also invited fresh perspectives and created safe spaces for vulnerability.

• Avoid burdening employees with unpaid work and emotional labor. “Women, and particularly women of color, are constantly having to hold the extra burden of educating and holding space for people,” according to the CEO of WTD, Danielle Barnes. Often this extra work is unpaid labor that is piled on top of her daily workload. Furthermore, the emotional labor that comes with holding space can be cumbersome. There are so many people who are doing this important work well but if an organization wants the work to continue, they need to invest in and support it.

Small break-out session from a Women Talk Design community workshop.

• Fresh, unbiased perspectives foster trust. Bringing in a fresh perspective helps people grow and think differently. Sophia Dias said, “Hearing things from a non-biased perspective is often more powerful than hearing someone within the company tell you what we stand for.”

“I think employees feel safer expressing themselves when someone besides managers and leadership facilitates the workshop,” shared Madhavi Jagdish, Principal Designer. Attendees can freely and honestly put themselves out there without fear of judgment.

Safe spaces must be designed intentionally.

We learned a lot about creating psychologically safe spaces from WTD’s approach. The success of this workshop series demonstrated how important it is to foster discussions about our lived experiences with great care. “Workspaces were not just designed for men, but for white, able-bodied, cis-gendered men,” according to Danielle. “I think this is important because how safe someone feels will also vary greatly depending on other aspects of their identity.”

These thoughtfully designed spaces are about more than just career development or improved product solutions. Fostering more authentic connections between people can lead to personal growth in employees and a healthier, supportive culture for everyone. What’s listed here works toward creating safety but is in no way a comprehensive list.

• Be intentional around who is, and who is not, invited. The WTD leadership and storytelling workshops are exclusively for women and gender non-binary employees because it is vital to create a space where women and nonbinary folks can feel safe sharing openly. Conversely, their Designing Virtual Meetings for Everyone to be Heard workshop is open to all because the onus for all to be heard is on everyone.

Group activity during a Women Talk Design community workshop.

• Gather lots of feedback to create a relevant and impactful experience. Danielle Barnes shared that feedback informs every step in their workshop-development process. Before they decide on a topic, they gather input from the community to see what topics are most relevant. They send a survey after every workshop and adjust each program based on what they learn from participants. It’s important for people to see that their ideas and suggestions are heard and acted upon in tangible ways.
• Set expectations early and often. Barnes shared that communication, expectation setting, and defined guidelines are all part of creating a safe space. They rely on their code of conduct to get everyone on the same page. “We share it in the signup process to set clear boundaries for attendees,” Barnes said. “If someone does not follow our code of conduct, it is something we enforce. Depending on the length and depth of a program, we collaborate on shared program guidelines together with attendees at the beginning.”
• Create interactive and structured experiences. Bringing people together to create connection and authenticity is difficult, but doing that remotely offers extra challenges and barriers. WTD has managed to set participants up for success by including one-to-one break-out sessions in their workshops.

After each workshop, we sent out a survey and the responses showed that 95% of participants felt the workshops were worthwhile. In my chats with Amie Levasseur, Madhavi Jagdish, Sophia Dias, and Amber Bouabdallah they all shared that they wished for more workshops like these. In the future, I’d love to scale and offer workshops to all of the employees at Salesforce.

We are on a long journey. We’re working hard to figure out what works by listening to those who experience marginalization within and beyond our organization. Workshops like the ones WTD offers are focused on giving individuals the tools and resources to support not only themselves but one another. We need to acknowledge the barriers facing women and nonbinary people in the workplace and work together to dismantle those barriers. Our toolkit is always growing in our efforts to lift each other up.

Thank you Justin Maguire, Jason Kriese, Rachel Posman, and the Salesforce UX Operations team for supporting and bringing DEI efforts to life, like this WTD workshop series. And of course, special thanks to Danielle Barnes, Madeline Davis, Margaret Seelie, Amie Levasseur, Madhavi Jagdish, Sophia Dias, Amber Bouabdallah, and the rest of our amazing women and non-binary WTD participants for being an important part of Salesforce history as we continue to champion and pave the way for us to be heard, seen, and respected.

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