Building more diverse, inclusive and equitable workplaces is an ongoing challenge for many organisations. There is still a disconnect between the amount of noise generated around DE&I and the results achieved. So how can employers do better, and what lessons can be learnt from other organisations?
My guest this week is Bruce Jackson, Associate General Counsel & Managing Director, Strategic Partnerships at Microsoft. Bruce has just published a new book, “Never Far From Home”, which documents his personal journey from a housing project in Manhattan to becoming a lawyer who represented Pete Rock and LL Cool J and ultimately worked for the President of Microsoft. In our conversation, he shares his insights into the developing DE&I strategies at Microsoft, and the role employers can play in improving social mobility.
In the interview, we discuss:
• Bruce’s journey and dealing with obstacles
• The overwhelming influence the environment you grew up in has on your prospects.
• What should employers do to improve diversity and inclusion?
• Practical incentives to help law firms be more diverse
• Improving evaluation and accountability
• The role employers can play in improving social mobility
• Cyber security programmes in community colleges
• The critical importance of not losing another generation of great brave minds.
Listen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:17]:
Hi there. This is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 495 of the Recruiting Future podcast. Building more diverse, inclusive and equitable workplaces is an ongoing challenge for many organizations. There’s still a disconnect between the amount of noise generated around DE and I and the results being achieved. So how can employers do better? And what lessons can be learned from other organizations? My guest this week is Bruce Jackson, Associate General Counsel and Managing Director, Strategic Partnerships at Microsoft. Bruce has just published a new book, Never Far From Home, which documents his personal journey from a housing project in Manhattan to becoming a lawyer who represented Pete Rock and LL Cool J, and ultimately working for the President of Microsoft. In our conversation, he shares his insights into the developing DE&I strategies at Microsoft and the role employers can play in improving social mobility. Hi, Bruce, and welcome to the podcast.
Bruce Jackson [00:01:29]:
How you doing, Matt? It’s a pleasure to be here with you today.
Matt Alder [00:01:32]:
Well, it’s an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Please, could you just introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do?
Bruce Jackson [00:01:39]:
My name is Bruce Jackson. I’m Associate General Counselor at Microsoft and also Managing Director for Strategic partnerships. And what does that tell? First of all, I’ve been with Microsoft for this is in my 23rd year, and I had a variety of roles. The most recent roles were supporting the entire U.S. sales team, which was a $20 billion business. And then most recently, before my current role, I supported what’s known as regulated industries, and that includes financial services, health and life science, federal government, state and local government as well, and education around migrating to the cloud. And that was a $15 billion business. So my current role, however, is I’m the executive for New York City, and I also work on strategic partnerships with other S500 companies.
Matt Alder [00:02:32]:
Fantastic stuff. Now, you’ve just written a book that’s coming out soon called Never Far From Home. Tell us about the book and why you’ve written it.
Bruce Jackson [00:02:43]:
Well, part of my background. I was an entertainment attorney, and many of my previous clients asked me to write a book for about the past five years, but I wasn’t quite ready to write a memoir. You would know, Matt, you have to be vulnerable, right? And be ready to do it. And if you do it, you have to be willing to tell the truth, the absolute truth, and really nothing but the truth. And so I thought I was ready at this point, so I decided to actually write it. The book, based on my clients Basically saying, bruce, your story can be inspirational too. A lot of young kids. And then subsequent to that, I had a conversation with our vice chair, and he said, no, your story can be inspirational to many people across the globe who are dealing with obstacles, whether it’s immigrants, whether it’s women, whether it’s member of the LGBTQ community, foreigners. He said, people in middle America and urban America as well as rural America. So. And after I finished writing the book, I realized, and talking to people from different backgrounds, they said, no, this is truly inspirational in the broader sense of the word.
Matt Alder [00:03:56]:
As you say that the book is about your story or your journey to do what you do. Now tell us about your story. Where did you start? How did you get here? What’s kind of happened in between? And what kind of obstacles have you faced along the way?
Bruce Jackson [00:04:09]:
First of all, I’ll just step back for a minute. I mean, the title of the book is Never Far From Home. The reason that is the title is because literally my office at Microsoft is within walking distance, a mile from where I grew up, in the Projects in New York City. And the projects is really public housing, right? And I visit there quite often because family and friends still live there. In fact, I live there once, twice. Once when I was an entertainment attorney where I represented at the time. LL Cool J, Pete, Rock, Heavy D, Busta Rhymes, pretty high profile clients. And then I moved back there after a divorce, pretty much while I was an attorney with Microsoft and closing $100 million deals. But I think the, when I just go back to my story, I grew up in Brooklyn, and I grew up in pre gentrified Crown Heights, and it was a primarily black community. We were on public assistance. That means food stamps, public subsidies. And most of the people in the area were poor. I mean, so you had poor, you had crime in the area as well. So that’s the kind of area in which I grew up. It wasn’t a middle class area at all. And when I think about areas like that, unfortunately you still have areas like that today. And it’s not that people in those areas are not smart, wanting to do better. The reality is that they do not have the opportunity nor do they have the environment to be successful, right? And so I tell people all the time, if you take someone out of a poor area that like I grew up in, and very few people escape it, and it’s, you wonder why. And you put them in an affluent area somewhere, anywhere in the country. If we do that, and we’ll find out that that kid who grew up in an affluent family in an affluent area, who place in a poor area, and the kid who grew up in a poor area and you put them in an affluent area, they both will have different tracks and success. So it doesn’t, it doesn’t really matter where you grew up, I mean, who you were born to, it all that matter, all that really matters is the actual environment and the opportunity, education that’s provided. And so where I grew up, it was, I wasn’t supposed to be here, to be quite honest with you, Matt, but statistics, I kind of got out of a situation that most people would have bet against me. And when you grow up in that type of environment, certainly you have one foot in, one foot out at times, right? Because you’re trying to survive. And I grew up in a single parent household. My mother, six of us, it was just my mother taking care of us. So she worked in a peanut factory and a glass factory at one time, but that wasn’t enough. So we had to rely on government assistance and food to really survive. And going to poor schools, right? So, and I did that and was told several times that I wasn’t college material even in high school. And so what I had to do was prove them wrong. There’s two kind of quotes that I kind of lived by all my life and I still live by today, which is Frederick Douglass, which is there’s no struggle, there’s no progress, similar to if there’s no pain, no gain. Then there’s Longfellow, which is the height reach and kept by great men would not achieve by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, were tolling upwards during the night. And that essentially means that you just outwork everyone. And so I realized early on that I was at a disadvantage, so I had to work. And it was painful trying to play catch up, but I realized that the average person doesn’t want to work more than the minimum amount of time required. And what I mean by that, if you have a 9 to 5 job, at 5 o’clock people are leaving. So if you want to catch up to them, just work 9 to 5, 30, and over a period of time, you’ll catch them. So that was my philosophy in college, that was my philosophy in law school, that was my philosophy here at Microsoft. Just outwork everyone and you’ll catch them, right, because they’re not smarter than you. They were just fortunate enough and privileged to have certain sort of resources that I wasn’t privy to at a young age.
Matt Alder [00:08:27]:
And I want to sort of dig into your time at Microsoft a little bit because I think there’s some really interesting things that we can talk about there. Before we do, though, I have to ask you about your time as an entertainment attorney. How did you end up in that kind of role and what did it entail?
Bruce Jackson [00:08:44]:
Well, I’m going to share something with you that I haven’t really shared with any of my friends until my book’s about to come out. So they’ll hear about it. As a youngster growing. Growing up in the projects, we play basketball for entertainment. Most of the time it’s the cheapest sort of sports that you can be involved in. You don’t need any uniform, you just need a basketball. And there’s courts all over the city. But I would sneak away from them and I would take acting, singing and dance lessons because I wanted to be on Broadway. So that was a triple threat. So my interest in entertainment came from that because that’s what I was essentially doing as a youngster growing up. So when I decided that I couldn’t do it, didn’t want to bet on myself because I realized that most people in entertainment were not successful and I was in the projects, I couldn’t afford not to be successful. So I decided to go the education route. And I forewent my passion and interest in entertainment. And so being an entertainment attorney afforded me the opportunity to support those who are in that field. So essentially I formed a firm with some of my college friends who went to law school and we pursued it. And we were fortunate enough to be quite honest with you, because even in that time period, there weren’t a lot of black entertainment attorneys. There were a lot of black entertainers. Like there are a lot of black athletes. But there weren’t a lot of black people at the front, front line, so to speak. And so I was fortunate that one of my friends were a booking agent for Pete Roxy L. Smith. And they, Pete Rock was arguably at that point, one of the top producers in the country. Compared to it was either Dr. Dre or Pete Rock. Either one of them could have been one or two. It was a toss up. And so we represented Pete Rock. And I was fortunate that a young man at that age trust another African American, to be quite honest with you, with his career, with his family’s blessing and approval, of course. And once I got Pete Rock, then I started just getting it’s everyone see what people don’t know. Entertainment attorneys or attorneys, period, they don’t make their clients, their clients make them and make their career. And so I constantly Tell Pete, and I told him probably a month ago that thank you. I’m where I am because of you as a 21 year old man, trusting me with your career. And from that we got Busta Rhymes, we got LL Cool J, we got Heavy D, we got, we end up having a lot of the top level talent, particularly in hip hop and R and b in the 90s.
Matt Alder [00:11:22]:
And how did you go from that to working for Microsoft?
Bruce Jackson [00:11:26]:
Well, one of the things I constantly tell people, Matt, is that when I talk to students and young attorneys, I said, you have to be strategic and look at where things are today, where they were yesterday and where they’re going tomorrow and prepare yourself for that. And so what I saw after the 90s, what we saw was AOL emails and that was just amazed by that. And then we saw Napster come to the scene in the 2000. And Napster kind of was the digital transformation for the music industry. We talk about digital transformation now for companies, for music. It was the 2000 because prior to Napster it was a physical platform. And what people would do is buy an album. Companies would produce one great single for that album and people would buy the album. Napster turned that industry upside down because now if you produce one great single, people would just buy the single and not buy an album at all. And so I saw that happening and I said, and someone told me at the same time that Microsoft was looking for an entertainment attorney so they could actually get into that field from a technology perspective. And I realized that that was just a great opportunity for me to get in, get the technology experience and come back and be extremely competitive and have an advantage over all other entertainment attorneys because no one really understood the technology portion of it. So I got in that way. Microsoft was looking to move to create a platform for that. I had the experience. And so it was an opportunity to marriage technology with entertainment and I took advantage of it.
Matt Alder [00:13:05]:
And what was your initial experience like at a company like Microsoft?
Bruce Jackson [00:13:11]:
Well, again, we’re talking about 2000 and I was the third African American attorney hired by Microsoft and by the time I joined, one left. So there was only two of us. So it was a lonely experience. It was lonely, to be quite honest with you. One, I was in Seattle, which didn’t have much diversity to begin with at that point. Then I was at a company in which I was. There was only two African American attorneys and very few African Americans at the company, to be quite honest with you. I would, on a daily basis was lucky or fortunate if I would see one so it was lonely initially from a personal standpoint, but professionally it was great. Probably one of the greatest experience I had working for what was then the digital media division. It gave me the opportunity because Microsoft, we created the platform which is a Windows Media Player. And so what we had to do is then go out and get content in Windows Media format. So it gave me the opportunity to go to my colleagues that I knew at the, in the music industry so we can get our content, their content in our format, whether it’s the music industry, the film industry. So I end up negotiating with colleagues of mine.
Matt Alder [00:14:27]:
How has the company developed over 20 years? How is the experience different now to what it was when you first joined?
Bruce Jackson [00:14:34]:
I think in 20, that’s kind of when we kind of started a diversity program. And I think I was fortunate and I can remain to be fortunate because we have someone who’s committed and that’s Brad Smith, who’s the president and vice chair. When I first stated to him why I was leaving, and I ultimately decided to leave Microsoft in 2000 because of the lack of diversity. And at that point he said, no, let’s see if we can find something for you in New York. So he did. And that’s the reason I’m still at Microsoft, to be quite honest with you, because I pretty much stated that I was leaving. And I think what he has shown and what he has done, some of the things I can’t say at all here, but certainly he has been a number one advocate for diversity and certainly a sponsor of mine, right? So someone who grew up in the, and I give Microsoft, and give him particularly credit, someone who grew up in the inner city ghetto of New York City on public assistance, basically saying, hey, listen, we don’t care about that. We’re going to promote you based on your work. And I sit in his office, the vice chairman of Microsoft, a Fortune 5 company today, and his office as in a role that I currently have. But no, I think he was certainly committed, not just for me, but in terms of expanding Microsoft Diversity Program and expanding the diversity at Microsoft. And that’s why it’s important when you have someone like that at the top, you do all you can to make sure that they remain successful and you support them as much as you can and you hope they stay as long as they can possibly stay, because it’s not often that you have someone at the top doing some of the things that he’s doing.
Matt Alder [00:16:22]:
Talking more generally, being more diverse, being more inclusive, being more equitable. There are things that lots of Employers are now talking about and saying that that’s their number one priority for their people and their business. What we’ve seen over the sort of the last 18 months is that isn’t necessarily translating into action and that are making a discernible difference. What do you think employers should be doing to really kind of improve what they’re doing in this area?
Bruce Jackson [00:16:53]:
Yeah, I’m glad you asked that, Matt. One of the things that first, first of all, just in the legal profession, when we talk about diversity, it’s the. It’s ironic that it’s the slowest growing group industry when it comes to diversity. And we look back 20 years, we haven’t made that much progress. So you’re right, it’s a lot of activity. And when I see activity, I equate that to noise. And I tell people, listen, I don’t want to hear noise about activities and things that you’re doing. Ultimately, to your point, is about results. What are the results? If this was a business and you were being great on it, would you be successful or not? It’s not about creating new products. Are the products selling? So to your point, you’re absolutely right. So what I tell people is listening what we do. We realize companies realize that, okay, we are not doing well at this thing. So what’s the first thing they do? They’ll say, let’s go and figure out why. So let’s, let’s do another white paper and figure out why we’re not making any traction. And my point is, listen, we have some of the smartest people in the world solving them, some of the most difficult problems in the world, and we can’t get this diversity thing right. Really? Why? So I’m to the point that we just need to hire diverse talent like we hire everyone else. And Brad and I often talk and we talk about the fact that that needs to be done and that we need to also hire women and diverse talent and promote them based on potential. Not that they’re button up. And what I mean by button up, Matt, is they cross every T’s, dot every I. And they’ve been in the position for. That’s not how everyone’s promoted. So. So we need to change that. Right? But more importantly, if you say, what do we need to do if people are serious about it? One of the things that Brad did early on, we have a law firm diversity program, and his goal was to help increase diversity within law firms. But he realized the law firms couldn’t do it by himself. We at Microsoft needed to help Them do it. And, and he basically says he’s going to set aside 5% of his bonus and his leadership bonus on the law firms meeting these particular goals. And the first year they did not and the money was donated to a not for profit organization. But the second year you better believe they did, the firms met it. So what I’ll say is that we need more programs like that. But more importantly, when we talk about diversity and people say that they are being graded on diversity, what they really saying is that diversity is part of an overall evaluation process. It’s not really carved out separately. So you’ll have some people doing great things in diversity and some people doing nothing. And the end of the year package is the same. So you got people who are working extremely hard, become frustrated, saying why am I doing it when someone is not doing anything and they’re not penalized? So I think you got to create an environment with people and we already do. In corporate America, you reward people who follow your culture or embrace your culture and you penalize those who don’t. So perhaps what they really need to do, companies, if they’re really serious about it, is I would suggest, say, okay, if diversity is already part of your scorecard for every employee, let’s separate it. Let’s say we’re going to carve diversity out and this is what we’re going to tie to diversity for a metric standpoint. And if you do that and people are truly evaluated on diversity, you’ll see results. Right? Because now people are impacted if they do nothing.
Matt Alder [00:20:44]:
That’s interesting and it makes perfect sense. I was so very struck by something you said at the beginning of the conversation about it’s all about the environment that people grow up in, not, you know, who they’re born to or who they are and that kind of thing. Sticking with employers, what role do you think employers can play in social mobility in terms of giving, you know, in terms of spreading opportunity more, more widely and helping people achieve their ambitions?
Bruce Jackson [00:21:14]:
I think one of the things I’m kind of fortunate that I’m in a place where my value aligns with the company’s priority, which is to help people achieve their potential. So I think that, yeah, companies can, I think, and one of the things that I try to do now and try to leverage what Microsoft is doing, for instance, we realize there’s going to be a huge gap in cybersecurity. Right. And you don’t necessarily have to go to college for cybersecurity. And so what we’re doing is placing programs in Community college. Community colleges, Right. Cybersecurity. And there you get a lot of women and you get more people of color when you talk about just skilling, Tills program is another program that we kind of work on because we’re a technology company. So it’s about trying to get more people in technology who are women and people of color who are not really in technology. So tils we go to the high school and start training early on in computer science. Right. And me myself, in terms of collaborating with other companies that may be a financial service company that has financial literacy and we’re talking about digital literacy. Let’s package that together, go to these communities, educate folks on that. So there are a lot of programs out there. I think we need to continue doing it. I think one of the things that we’re focusing on now that really came to light is broadband. When you think about broadband, broadband is truly the gatekeeper to education. And the pandemic proves that. So, so, and broadband is there’s the lack of broadband in rural areas as well as urban areas. So it’s about working with companies to get broadband in those areas. Because it’s not just a gatekeeper to education, it’s a gatekeeper to health. It’s telehealth now. Right. Which is extremely important. And it’s also the gatekeeper to jobs because if you think about it, people go online to get jobs. So we need to get broadband as a start into some of these communities. And that’s just a start. Right. And my goal is to, by writing the book, is to let people know who are struggling. I’m them and they’re me. I just have a platform to tell the story and tell the true story so people can one identify with me and say, I understand your struggle. If you made it, I can make it. And to kids, I tell them all the time, I’m your uncle, your dad, your brother. So look at me in that fashion. I wasn’t supposed to make it, but I made it. So there’s a way to make it until we can’t wait for the society to change, for everyone to have an equal opportunity and start at the first yard line instead of some starting at the first and other at the 50. We can’t wait because we can’t afford to lose another generation of intelligent, brilliant minds. And so part of my book is to try to inspire those people to break through despite this situation and wait for society to change and provide all of that. So that’s what we really need. Ultimately, we need everyone because we Live in a capitalist society, everyone to start out on the first shot line, not some on the 1st and some at the 50. Because even if you’re trying to catch up, it’s fatigue. You become fatigued if someone has that much of a head start. So we need society to change. And what I mean by that, provide better schools and resources in the urban, in the rural areas, so people can have an equal chance to be successful and reach their potential. That’s what we want, everyone, certainly that’s what I want, everyone to be able to reach their potential and try to remove some of the barriers that people are confronted with. And people who are privileged have barriers too. So part of my book is to help them remove barriers, but in addition to that, give them proximity to what life is like for those of us who have difficult challenges. And if you bring people close to it and give them proximity, hopefully that breeds empathy. And with empathy, hopefully we get support and you bring those who are privileged along that journey to make this just a better world for us all to live in. So that’s kind of the goal. That’s my goal.
Matt Alder [00:25:19]:
Amazing. So, final question. Where can people find the book?
Bruce Jackson [00:25:23]:
You can find it on all outlets. Amazon is certainly you can go to Amazon and Barnes and Noble as well, but you can find it on all retail outlets now.
Matt Alder [00:25:33]:
And it’s called Never Far From Home.
Bruce Jackson [00:25:35]:
Never Far From Home.
Matt Alder [00:25:37]:
Fantastic. Bruce, it has been an absolute pleasure to talk to you.
Bruce Jackson [00:25:41]:
It’s been great talking to you, Matt.
Matt Alder [00:25:44]:
My thanks to Bruce. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts, on Spotify or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow the show on Instagram. You can find us by searching for Recruiting Future. You can search all the past episodes@recruiting future.com on that site. You can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Recruiting Future Feast, and get the inside track about everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
