Have you heard of
the term Fasian?
It's short for fake Asian.
I'm not sure if
it's something that
my friends and I came up with,
but that's basically what I am.
A Fasian. My name
is Hayley Yeates.
I was born in South Korea and
adopted at five months old.
I've grown up here and lived
in Sydney my whole life.
My parents and my
extended family
are all white Australians.
For me, I've only ever identified
as a proud Australian.
I don't feel like I'm different.
I don't wake up in the
morning and consider
how I can leave my
best minority life.
I've gotten used to
the double-take.
When someone meets me
for the first time and
my face and my accent
doesn't quite match the
picture in their head.
I laugh about it
when people say,
but where are you really from?
I might be a spy with
a secret identity.
Most of the time, it's easy
to forget that people can make
assumptions about me just
based on how I look.
Not long ago when I
was at university,
group assignments, met up a
large portion of your marks.
Groups were often formed
in the first few weeks,
usually based on
who you sit with.
In that time, I noticed
people scanning the
room as they walked in.
Evaluating their options.
They look in my direction,
think it over, and then
they sit at another table.
For a while, I just assumed it's
probably because I'm
just not that smiley.
But several subjects passed,
it was still bothering me
until one of my friends said,
Hayley, It's probably because
they think you're Asian.
I decided each time I
studied a new subject,
I would be that person that
had done all of the readings.
I'd put up my hand and I would
answer all of the questions.
I felt like if I put in the
extra effort and I spoke up,
my classmates would think I was
somebody worth working with.
After going above and beyond
in too many subjects,
I realized I was making myself
work harder than everybody
else, just to be saying.
I found myself consciously
and subconsciously
modifying my behavior to
manage these assumptions.
I found myself not wanting
to buy certain items of
clothing or wear my glasses to
work in case I looked too Asian.
For years, I didn't
have a picture on
my LinkedIn profile
because I didn't want
anyone to think that
I wouldn't make
a good communications manager
because English look like it
might be my second language.
I was secretly grateful to
have a westernized name.
One day I realized if this
is what it's like for me,
a fake Asian, what's it like
for someone who's genuinely
from another culture?
It stands to reason
if you were raised in
a culture different to
the one that you
end up working in,
you're probably going to
feel some pressure to adapt.
An Australian study of people
with Asian backgrounds,
including India,
Pakistan, and Sri Lanka,
found that two-thirds of people
surveyed felt that
they needed to
conform to angler size ideas
of teamwork and leadership
to be successful.
The irony of this is
that cultural diversity,
it's actually great
for business.
McKinsey's study of over
300 multinational companies
found that companies
which were in
the top quartile for
ethnic diversity,
they were 35 percent
more likely to
have financial returns
above their competitors.
When you start to look at it,
there's extensive research that
suggests just why this
might be the case.
Culturally diverse
teams can produce
more accurate work by
tapping into a wider variety
of skills and experience.
They're able to focus more
effects and remain objective.
There are also more innovative.
Studies have shown
culturally diverse teams
are more likely to
develop new products.
They're also better
able to solve
problems and make decisions.
I don't mean the decisions like,
what are we going to
order at Yum Cha?
I still get asked
this quite a lot.
The decisions which
reflect the diversity of
an organization's staff
and their customers.
If it's beneficial for
businesses to help people
feel that they can bring
their whole selves to work,
are we making it easy for them?
When the topic of
diversity comes up,
it's often in relation
to gender diversity.
We've looked deep
into the barriers
to gender equality at work,
the gender pay gap,
female representation
in senior management
and on boards, the
glass ceiling.
We've become more
and more educated
on how to tackle the problem.
Support groups, quarters
versus targets.
As women, we've been
told to get mentored,
reach higher, lean
in, and speak up.
But what about
cultural minorities?
What if you're Asian and female?
Do I need to lean
in twice as hard?
Asian American leadership,
author Jane Hyun
coined the term the
Bamboo Ceiling.
Similar to what the glass
ceiling is for women,
the Bamboo Ceiling refers to
barriers that people with
Asian backgrounds face in
workplaces with
Western cultures.
When I first read about
the Bamboo Ceiling,
I felt a bit guilty.
Guilty how I had
handled myself in
those university
classes and take
it upon myself to manage
other people's expectations.
I was somehow reinforcing
these multiple ceilings.
Go to company numbers
on hiring, retention,
promotion of tech companies in
Silicon Valley over a
period of nine years.
While Asians were the largest
minority in the industry,
even outnumbering what
people at an entry-level,
they were the least likely to
be promoted into management.
Black and Latino representation
had actually declined,
and while white women
seem to be climbing
the corporate ladder,
minority women would just not.
In fact, race had over
three-and-a-half times
the negative impact on
career progression
than gender did.
Probably the most
upsetting conclusion in
a sense report was that
the millennial generation,
my generation is unlikely to
crack the cultural ceiling.
Are we seriously looking at
another decade of
people thinking twice
about using a profile picture
or their given names
on a job application.
When I think about legacy,
it's not just something to
be posthumously preserved.
It's something that
should drive us
forward into the future
and make us want to work towards
something better than
what we have now.
Diversity and inclusion,
there's much more
than a couple of
mentions in an annual report
or even workshops
on implicit bias.
It's about shifting to a
more globalized mindset and
expanding our definitions of
what teamwork and
leadership can look like.
It's time to go beyond the
demographics of this issue.
The who and the what. We need to
be looking at the
how and the why.
Authentic, unrestrained
conversations to look deep
into the barriers the
cultural minorities
and their employers face.
Because as far as I know,
there isn't going to be a
data point that's going
to tell you how
it feels to think
your peers might be
avoiding working with you
just based on how you look.
Or how good it can
feel to look at
your organization
and see diversity
truly represented
at every level.
To break the glass, Bamboo,
and whatever other
ceilings there may be,
let's create
environments where we
can bring our whole
selves to work.
Because the next generation
deserves to feel
like they are in
off and because there's
real strength in our
differences. Thank you.