Episode 26: Changing the Climate For Women — Bonny Bentzin - Transcript
Kaia Findlay 0:01
Welcome to the campus energy and sustainability podcast. In each episode, we talk with leading campus professionals, thought leaders, engineers and innovators addressing the unique challenges and opportunities facing higher ed and corporate campuses. Our discussions will range from energy conservation and efficiency to planning and finance, from building science to social science, from energy systems to food systems. We hope you're ready to learn, share and ultimately accelerate your institution towards solutions. I'm Kaia Findlay, the podcast and Communications Manager at Fovea, an energy carbon and business planning firm. Here at the campus energy and sustainability podcast, we're trying something new by launching a themed mini series. Episodes in the mini series will be shorter than regular episodes, and will seek to explore multiple angles in a common sustainability thread. Our first theme series is called "Changing the climate for women," and it explores women's experiences in sustainability, energy and facilities. In the first episode of this series, our intern Sarah Barr interviews Bonny Bentzin, Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer at UCLA. So Sarah, people may have listened to your episode on a renewable fuel powered arts community that we released in August. But just in case they haven't, can you briefly introduce yourself and then tell us what we're going to hear in this episode?
Sarah Barr 1:24
Sure. So if you missed the episode we released in August, my name is Sarah Barr. I'm an intern from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, where I'm a first year Masters student studying environmental science and Mass Communication. So that's a little bit about me. And then this episode, like you mentioned, features Bonny Bentzin, who's the chief Sustainability Officer at UCLA, and she shares a lot of her personal experiences in the workplace, dealing with micro aggressions, things of that nature and then relates those experiences to broader themes of being a woman working in sustainability in an increasingly diverse workforce. So topics she touches on our mentorship, advancement getting into the boardroom, and more.
Kaia Findlay 2:15
So I think Bonny shares some powerful stories and powerful insights in this interview. And especially for me as a young woman entering the sustainability field, it was really great to get some of those insights and hear the experiences of another woman. So as a young woman yourself about to enter the workforce, what did you learn from this episode? And how did it make you feel about your future in the system women in the sustainability field?
Sarah Barr 2:40
I guess to start, I wasn't really aware that there were still things I didn't know about entering the workforce as a woman and hearing Bonny's experiences and also Kayla Dawson, we'll be featuring her episode next month, her experience as well. Listening to them made me aware of these issues that still exists for women in the workplace that I wasn't aware were still problems. So it has sort of prepared me for what's to come and given me a better idea of how I can handle these situations when they arise with with maturity in a way that's productive for everyone involved.
Kaia Findlay 3:19
So I think Bonny shares some powerful stories and powerful insights in this interview. And you have another interview with a woman, Kayla Dawson coming up will be releasing that next month and it shares some equally powerful stories. So with these stories, what do you hope listeners will glean from this episode and from those to come?
Sarah Barr 3:37
I guess for for other women listening to this episode, I hope that they benefit from it in the same way that I did. So I sort of learned about a lot of issues that are are still problems for women entering the workforce, especially in more technical like science areas. And for men, will is men and women. Both but mainly men, I would say I hope that it makes them more aware of these issues that still exist under the surface. I think they go unnoticed by a lot of people. And my hope would just be that it raises awareness that some of these issues are still problems that that need to be addressed.
Kaia Findlay 4:19
Awesome. Well, thank you, Sarah. And we look forward to listening to this first episode in the series on women in the sustainability sector.
Sarah Barr 4:26
Thanks, Kaia. I hope everyone enjoys it. Well, Bonny, I want to start by welcoming you to the show. We're really glad you could join today for this interview.
Bonny Bentzin 4:36
Yes, thank you so much. I'm really happy to be here. It's an important topic.
Sarah Barr 4:41
Well, first of all, could you just give a little bit of background on your current role and how you're involved in sustainability?
Bonny Bentzin 4:48
Currently, in my role, I am the Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer at UCLA, working across the entire portfolio sustainability portfolio for the campus and trying to bring together the stakeholder And build strategy and resources and management tactics, change management tactics to help us advance these sustainability goals across this large university, a community of 80,000 people, a daily population. So in a very motivated state, so it's quite fun.
Sarah Barr 5:18
So I'll just start off by asking you what have you noticed about the roles men and women play in the workplace? Have you noticed any differences?
Bonny Bentzin 5:26
So, you know, one of the things that I've experienced quite a bit, or observed quite a bit is that women really play a huge facilitation role in the workplace. So they facilitate conversations, they facilitate meetings, but that that facilitation role is undervalued. But the reality is, is that you can't achieve some of these more complex projects without a facilitator, or, or really successfully integrate change management into your organization. And so that's something that I observed in terms of a skill that isn't really clearly recognized or if it is grossly undervalued in the workplace. And so I think that's one way that women are undervalued. It's an undervalued skill that is essential to advancing projects, change management, you know, building by in recruiting stakeholders. And I think in the early days of this field, the women outrank the men. It's interesting, because that started that way, you know, starting to shift a little bit, but it's only that way. Because the the biggest part of the role that Sustainability Officer Blaze is this facilitation. It's sort of a sort of a merging of business development, stakeholder management, change management, and really, all of those things require a lot of facilitation. So that's something that I'm definitely seeing, you know, I've observed from my own experience, and observing others, that that facilitation role, you know, oftentimes you know, those positions are undervalued.
Sarah Barr 7:02
Do you find that that's sort of a formal position that women find themselves in? Or is that sort of an assumed position just because they're the ones more likely to take on that that responsibility?
Bonny Bentzin 7:15
Well, I think it's a little bit of both, quite frankly, you often see women just automatically sort of landed a support role in meetings, for example, you'll start to see they're just taking their own notes. And it's an assumption that they'll just provide the notes to the to the group, whether they are leading that conversation, or whether or not they've been assigned that conversation. I've had that experience myself. So there's some of that and some of that is, you know, going back to my original comment about sustainability officers, the early days of sustainably directors and managers and coordinators, because women naturally stepped into those because in my case, it was a passion for problem solving and a passion for, you know, having a huge impact on the world. I can't speak for other People because I think it's everyone's got a different reason of why they do this work. But our skills are sort of well positioned to do these roles, you know, the as the skills the facilitator. So in some case, I would say that it's a, it's intentional in some cases, I would say that it sort of is assumed, depending on the situation.
Sarah Barr 8:19
So aside from the roles that you've noticed men and women filling in the workplace, what can you say about interactions between different genders in the workplace things that you've seen or experienced?
Bonny Bentzin 8:34
I've been and I've had colleagues that had been criticized for being overly emotional in the workplace, or too reactionary. We've been dubbed, hysterical, or you're just just emotional. And yet at the same time, I've seen this so the same men who have made those comments throw their temper tantrums. And I think it's really interesting that there's this gap of Understanding or or this, maybe it's a lack of mirroring or have a really sort of stepping outside of yourself and observing the situation. But there's this tendency to just make an assumption that women are more emotional when the reality is, is that I see just as much, you know, temper tantrum style behavior from men and senior men in the workplace. That's pretty interesting. You know, I've also been criticized a little bit personally, with, you know, I'm six foot tall, I've got really wide German shoulders. And one of the things I've experienced in the workplaces, I've been criticized for not being more feminine. I actually had a former supervisor that counseled me that I shouldn't stand in doorways, because my body size scares people and they feel trapped, and that I should wear pastels. And you know, maybe try to, you know, make myself look smaller, digesting my body language and It's interesting. On reflection, I've reflected on that quite a bit through my career. You know, looking back, I could have actually filed the complaint against that. And you would never, ever tell him that man that, why is it that it's, you know, okay to tell a woman that she needs to be more feminine? Or that she needs to make herself look appear smaller, or not standing doorways? Why is it that women are immediately tagged as being emotional, irrational? You know, these are these are questions that we need it we still surprisingly, for all the enhancements that we've made, don't have an answer to and we need to continue to raise awareness about this. And I think, you know, tied to that as a challenge. Some men in this group, they were raised in an area they have little they've colloquialisms that are in today's world could be viewed as inappropriate if you're taken out of context. And these are good people doing good work and you know, I sort of struggle sometimes with how do I help them raise awareness about potential damage to their reputation and their work? And without making it look like I'm being reactionary or sensitive or too politically correct, because, you know, in this case, you know, we have a couple of people in leadership to see things that are there things that I never would have, you know, given a second thought to maybe 10 years ago, but now I'm very aware that it's inappropriate. And if a student happens to hear it and put it into context, or, or someone else that it can actually really distract everyone in appropriately. And so on. The flip side is I struggle with that challenge as well of, you know, how do I counselor advise some of the men that I work with, be more aware of what they're saying, in a way that doesn't just put me in sort of a feminist Nazi or, or or, you know, put me into a category slightly under category that shuts down that that that communication
Sarah Barr 12:00
I think that's a really interesting point you make about the colloquialisms because there's so many, like inappropriate sayings that are baked into our culture. And I think things are improving, but it's a slow transition for sure.
Bonny Bentzin 12:15
So it's interesting, someone just posted an article about how what we saw in media and TV and movies in the 80s is grossly inappropriate. And no one none of us thought it was was so so if you think about where in movies like the movies like Working Girl, you know, how she how, what she had to deal with, in that movie, of interacting with men, or, you know, 16 Candles, or any of these things were these movies where it was men were more aggressive with women and it was accepted as just funny or, or just the norm. And that that that's, that's changing now. There it is. It's a relaxed, ladies. Don't be so uptight. You know, you You want it is the article. And and you know, you hear that a lot, you know, it's you don't hear that so much anymore. But in my early days, I did hear about that I had to, I had to manage up on some, some of my supervisors, some very good people, some mentors and people I, you know, and I had to tactfully sort of say that, you know, certain phrases or certain, saying I'm uptight was not appropriate, you know, that it was actually perpetuating a gender stereotype that was inappropriate workplace over the past pretty much anywhere.
Sarah Barr 13:32
Well, another question I have for you is about advancement and how the experience of moving up the ladder compares four different genders. So I guess Have you noticed any challenges there?
Bonny Bentzin 13:45
I think the other challenge that we face is that, particularly if you go into a boardroom, oftentimes, I mean, it's really rare starting to see a shift but a boardroom, whether it's higher ed, or whether it whether it's a corporate or nonprofit. It's the older white men in those boardrooms. And they've gotten there, because they've had the support the administrative support and the facilitation support behind them, which has been predominantly women. And so I think it's interesting that there's this sense that you can't advance. You know, it's always been white men. And so we're slow and getting into that boardroom. But I think that's another challenge that we face as well is moving into that boardroom proving our value in these leadership positions. And it's changing, but it's slow to change. I participate in the informal National Women's higher and sustainability group. And and one of the things we've talked about too, is that oftentimes expertise, or you a pedigree, if you will, or a celebrity status that will get you into these these higher level positions comes from publishing and then the publishing gets you into speaking engagements and That gets you into these higher positions. And I think that because women play this facilitation role, you know, fewer women are publishing, and that's having impact on our ability to advance.
Sarah Barr 15:15
Do you mean publishing articles? publishing books? articles, books?
Bonny Bentzin 15:21
Yes. You know, some of the men that I see that are the very successful in, you know, in the in the same ability work, they've gotten there, because they've published and it actually, in some cases, they haven't published, they've edited, they haven't written, they've edited a book. And so it's an interesting, it's an interesting challenge. And so, you know, we talked a little bit about how do we support each other in you know, setting some targets or goals and achieving those goals, you know, how do we leverage each other's strengths? You know, this group got together originally because, you know, it's the thinking that men get together and golf and they sort of kind of help themselves advance help each other advanced that way, you know, through conversations and, and, and positions and opportunities. And so the idea was that, you know, women tend to compete a little bit, because we're all trying to find our way up to the to the top. And so women need to stop competing as much with each other and start supporting each other. And so that's what this group is about. We've had some of our membership in the last couple months have some opportunities offered to them that they've brought back to the group to discuss. And it's interesting that some of the conversations that have been had about Should I take this position or whatnot had been centered around, I'll never see my child or I'll have less time with my child or I won't be as strong for my family, or, you know, and it's, it's surprising, or, you know, one of the comments that was made as I don't, I'm afraid I'll have to work so hard when many men at the levels that these women are at, have support staff, administrative staff, so they can focus their efforts or times on really strategic productive work instead of you know, calendaring, which is important, but if you've got someone who's in a senior position, ideally, it's because they're there because they've They've got some additional skills around organizational strategy building or stakeholder management that you want to leverage.
Sarah Barr 17:09
So, speaking of making it into the boardroom, do you think publishing is the main access point? Or what are some other good means of advancement?
Bonny Bentzin 17:20
Well, I think that one sense is, you know, how do you get to the boardroom, you get to the boardroom, because of your experience and your notoriety, you know, and I mean, I'm using everybody in it in a good way at this point, you know, have an idea of something you've accomplished or something, a message you're delivering or expertise that you have in a topic, but how you get noticed, you know, that's the question and sometimes you get noticed through mentorship, you know, and and I, I try to do my fair share of mentoring now, because when I was at my first job in higher ed, Arizona State University. I had someone in this case he was a man who saw value in me and took an interest in advancing has Seeing the advanced just from the pure value of seeing the advancement and do great work. And the agreement was an unstated agreement was that I'd pay it forward. And so so that's something that mentorship plays a key role. But it's important to find a mentor that has that vision and interest, you know that they're not looking at it in their own self interest, except that his satisfaction of seeing his input on people show results. But you know, that's that's the important thing of finding a good mentor. I also think that it's important to have in addition to sort of finding a good mentor, find, typically programs are set up strictly for you more experienced people to mentor inexperienced people. The reality is, is that experienced people need ongoing mentorship as well. And so that's where peer to peer mentorship comes in. And that's where like, for example, this conversation I have with this group of women nationally, comes in, we can bounce ideas off each other give a different perspective, I get some fairly different perspectives. You know, the women that were looking at these opportunities when they spoke about them, you know, including, you know, you need to be more persistent about, you know, what sort of resources are required for for you to take on this role. Because I certainly a man would have no problem saying that, and serving on boards, you know, trying to be more active. Now, the challenge there is, if you're active in these nonprofit organizations, and these advocacy organizations, you know, you have to be careful and unfortunately, we have to be careful, you can be dubbed, as you know, hysterical if you choose the wrong organization, because it's too, too on the fringe, or you can be even just falling into a role of having to, you know, being more of a supporter than a vocal person. And so I think it's thinking about how do we continue to help each other, you know, advance.
Sarah Barr 19:49
Um, what is some advice that you would give for improving interactions in the workplace for improving communications,
Bonny Bentzin 19:58
Some advice that I give is is really You know, sometimes I think that we don't know how to take criticism or critique. And we also don't know how to deliver it. So I think that everyone needs to learn how people need to learn how to deliver feedback. I think that's a lost art. But we also need to learn how to take feedback. You know, I was just speaking to someone here on my campus yesterday, and he was talking about how he was having some challenges with the workplace and whatnot. And he finally decided to take a step back and look at himself in the outside in and he realized also, he had some responsibility of changing his body language and his communication style in the language he was using. And that as a result of doing that, not only did it sort of, sort of transform his interactions with his supervisors, but also transformed his relationship with his family and his friends. You know, we can send women through all sorts of communications trainings, but if we don't get everyone through those trainings, it's a problem. You know, we will always they'll always be this divide about being touchy feely or whatnot. I gotta I realized that this this is going to be really severe about, you know, women in the workplace and gender. But at the same time, I think that that we how do we get everyone sort of become more aware of this, because we all need to be aware of our behavior and our reactions and our interactions. And that that will help resolve some of the, what we're seeing it, you know, the other set of pieces and again, to stray away from strictly a gender dynamics question. in the workplace, we are seeing more diversity than we've ever seen before. We've got a lot of cultural diversity, gender, sexual orientation, diversity in the workplace. And so how do we evolve and become, you know, how do we make the time to become more aware of our communication styles and and the needs of the diversity in the workplace? And also, how do you present that in a way that isn't so touchy feely that it turns off at the workplace?
Sarah Barr 22:01
So, I guess to wrap up here speaking of improving feedback and becoming more aware of different communication styles, how can we put that into practice, like you say, without becoming too touchy feely to where it would turn off some people in the workplace.
Bonny Bentzin 22:19
Here at my university, they required all personnel from manager up to take 20 hours of people management training. So what often happens is in this very fast paced world, people are advanced, and they may or may not have had the appropriate support training to help them evolve in their leadership style or in their in how they operate. And so what this training was about was how to do that. So it was all about different topics, everything from diversity and inclusion, sexual harassment, you know how to give performance reviews, how what happens when there's that you suspect that something's going on in the workplace, it isn't appropriate, you know, all this type of training and I'll admit All of us made quite a few jokes about it, it was a lot of time. And you know that it felt like that some of it was a little bit insipid. But at the same time, what I've observed, both in myself and in my colleagues that have taken the training is I'm seeing them, whether they know it or not, I'm seeing them be a little more intentional in some things. I think what's interesting about that is when you start to take on an approach of being more intentional in how you do things, you know, in the beginning, it can be kind of hard, because if everyone's not evolving with you, it might be a little sticky, if you will. But as people start to see the results of that shift, that maybe stress in the workplace is settled down, or that collaborations are happening between departments that hadn't been there before, you know, or some efficiency has been achieved, that really makes life easier, saves time resources, and is reducing liability, then that sort of starts to build on itself. Another past work environment. There was a sustainability team and an engineering team and the security team had some some men, but also was predominantly women. And the engineering team had some women, but it was predominantly men. Okay. And we did a three day or two days facilitation training. And it was interesting because first of all, that the company was willing to basically shut us down for two days to do this training. So it was all the engineers and the sustainability people. It was interesting, because the beginning of the training, you could tell that they were they were doing it because, you know, they wanted to sort of test it and see how it worked. But there was also this sort of sense that it didn't speak to them. As the training progressed, and became more focused on the desired outcomes for more efficient, more productive meetings, more efficient, productive outcomes and conversations and fewer stakeholders. I watched them shift. And it was interesting to say, Oh, I always wondered what you guys would use sustainability, what we're doing with our flip charts and your markers and your post it notes. And now I understand and Wow, it moved the conversation along a lot faster. And so it's an example of where making training, you know, certain core trainings available across the board. It made those engineers, mostly men, some of them are women more productive, not a gender thing that was just a experience or skills or sector thing, in terms of what is in their toolbox that they have learned through their trainings. So again, I know we're off the topic of gender. But if we're going to actually increase understanding and increase an awareness in the workplace, it can't just be about men or women. It's got to be training across the board.
Sarah Barr 25:43
Right. I think that's a really important point. Well, it's been it's been really great talking with you today. And thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been great having you.
Bonny Bentzin 25:52
Thank you. Glad to be here.
Sarah Barr 25:54
All right. Thank you, Bonny.
Bonny Bentzin 25:55
All right. Take care. Bye. Bye.
Sarah Barr 25:58
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