Interrogating & Reframing "Success"- 3 Questions for Son Young Hahm, Google

KHP:
For my latest installment of 3 Questions, I'm here with Son Young Hahm. Son Young was one of my first managers almost 20 years ago, and I'm so glad the universe has brought us back together as colleagues and as neighbors in North Carolina.

Son Young:
Hi Kelly. Thanks for inviting me. We met exactly 20 years ago through Teach For America. Kelly and I founded the MidAtlantic Recruitment Team in Washington, DC together. And we worked together in the National Recruitment Team for several years, and it was really fun reconnecting just a few years ago when I was working at the KIPP School Leadership Programs and looking for amazing facilitators to do leadership development. It was great to have you come and teach our assistant principals. In January I transitioned from the KIPP Foundation and started working with Google to design equity, inclusion, and diversity leadership development for executives at their startup companies, Alphabet. It's been fun to still do similar work- leadership development with the equity focus- but in a different domain. So here I am today.

KHP:
You shared something on Facebook that I just couldn't stop thinking about, and that's why I wanted to bring you onto this little video chat today. You saw a recent Harvard Business Review Women at Work podcast that inspired you to take action. Tell us a little bit about the podcast and what you did.

Son Young:
Sure. Listening to podcasts and going for long walks are the two things that have helped me stay balanced and healthy during this time. So I was going on my usual walk in the woods while listening to this episode and it was called “Un-Pause Yourself. And it featured the editors of Harvard Business Review, speaking to two experts on how professional women can push themselves and protect their jobs during this time. And they gave nuggets of lots of valuable advice. And, and while I was listening I was nodding and, and at the same time, I was waiting for them to acknowledge two things: one, this moment of racial reckoning and the Black Lives Matter movement. And two, the impact that this was having on the lives of people, women of color, specifically black women, and how the global pandemic, the racial reckoning and the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor was impacting people psychically and emotionally and their ability to continue forcefully at work. When the podcast ended and nobody mentioned or acknowledged any of that, I immediately thought, who is this podcast for it? It’s not for people like me, a woman of color who is just really grappling emotionally and trying to reconcile how to show up for work while I'm really struggling. And so in that moment, on the trail, I paused and I looked up who the producers were and I emailed them right away. And I asked them to think about two things. One was that there was an opportunity for the interviewers or the experts to acknowledge that not everybody is experiencing this moment the same way and that to unpause yourself and to continue working hard and showing up hard for work is not the same for women of color, especially black women. And that we have to take time to rest and to protect ourselves and to take some moments for self care…. but instead the experts were advising things like, “Don't put yourself at risk. You have to show that you're productive. You need to get on email earlier than your boss. You should be checking email while you're eating breakfast and send a quick reply to show them that you're on and you're being productive and that you can't afford to take your feet off the gas pedal.” And I just thought, this advice doesn't work for me. And if Harvard Business Review is giving out this advice, it is stamping with their seal of approval that this is how managers should be managing people and expecting women to show up. And I just felt like it was really tone deaf to what people need at this time.

KHP:
I so appreciate both your reaction and your instinct to stop on the trail and reach out. And it did have an impact, right? Tell us about their reply.

Son Young:
Within a few days, I got a response back from one of the producers and I was really relieved by her response. She acknowledged that that wasn't addressed. She acknowledged that that was a huge gap and that they are committed to doing better. And she wanted the podcast to be a place where women of color could see themselves and to grow. And then she took the step forward to even say, um, I want to address what you've raised in our upcoming newsletter. And she wrote a acknowledgement of their shortcoming in this podcast and in the whole season and how they want to do better as they move forward. And I, I was, you know, I was really surprised and grateful for that response.

KHP:
In your Facebook posts, you also shared some pretty vulnerable reflections about your own history of trying to be productive and some of the personal trade-offs that have come with it. And as I read that I was thinking, what advice do you wish your younger self had been able to hear when you were in those moments?
Son Young:
I think I would go even back to my childhood because so much of how I show up in the workplace and how I view work and productivity and achievement is rooted in how I was socialized as a young girl. You know, we immigrated to the U S when I was six years old and my mother ingrained in me since then that the only way I would gain an earn people's respect in America was to be successful financially and academically, and to be a strong performer. So getting good grades, going to a good college, being acknowledged by my teachers and professors, and later on my boss, became a way of gaining a sense of self-worth and validation that I belonged, that I mattered, that I was valuable. This kind of orientation stayed with me even as a grown woman. And, and in fact, as I became more and more successful, it actually became even more amplified because the more work I put in, the more successful I got, the more successful I got, the more pressure I felt to perform and to outdo what I did before, or to maintain that same performance.  And as I got married, had children, started to work on my doctorate. I couldn't take my feet off the gas pedal because even in the midst of all these other things that I had added onto my life, I felt the pressure to perform. So what advice would I give to myself? I would say, “What you produce does not determine your value. You are worthy and you are enough, and you don't have to prove to anybody that you belong, and that you deserve respect.”

KHP:
That's so profound, Son Young.  I need to keep that in mind, especially in the kind of coaching and work that I do, which is around helping people feel more productive and getting things done. And we all need to find ways to do that that honor people's humanity and give them space to be who they are and don't feed into destructiveness of productivity culture. Thank you for that.