From Diversity Zero to

Hero:The GoDaddy Transformation Story

Katee Van Horn, PHR

CEO, Bar the Door Consulting & Coaching

kateevanhorn.com

@kateebar7

Why GoDaddy Needed to Change

Identifying Bias and Blocking It

What Was Learned, What Was Achieved

What You Can Do in Your Organizations

Agenda

The right employee culture

is one where everyone feels

individually responsible

for

a collectively awesome

experience.

Why GoDaddy Needed to Change

▪ Build trust & transparency with our employee.

▪ New & different kinds of talent.

▪ Offices everywhere we needed to be.

▪ Employer brand & culture to attract & retain

the best.

▪ External brand to match our internal culture.

•Be extraordinary.

•Own outcomes.

•Join forces.

•Work fearlessly.

•Live passionately.

Values

Taking it to the Whiteboard

Recruit

brilliant

people

Define how

we would

work together

Recognize

great work

& values

Pay

equity

Career

advancement

Identifying Bias and

Blocking It

It’s not enough to say

you believe in equality.

First Salary Data published at Grace Hopper

Women are doing well… right?

How We

Evaluate

Performance:

The 9-box

The How

Demonstration of behaviors

relative to our values central

to performance:

Own Outcomes, Join Forces,

Work Fearlessly

The What

Performance relative to goals

and impact, based on

expectations of your level.

The What + The How = Our

ResultsBeing Extraordinary is our highest value,

it’s how we make a difference in the world.

Own Outcomes Join Forces Work FearlesslyEvery line of code, every pixel, every interaction with a teammate, customer or partner is a chance to change the world. Our actions and results speak for themselves. We work toward the best possible outcome because we are passionate about our customers. We bring humanity to technology that helps our customers achieve their dreams.

As a team, we move the company toward its vision. When I can help others, I do. Great teams multiply individual talents. Great teammates make others better without taking credit. We win together and lose together. Together, we celebrate our successes and learn from our failures.

We innovate and take risks to achieve uncommon outcomes. We are curious and not afraid of experimentation or failure. We take risks and try new ways of doing things. There are valuable discoveries and lessons to be learned everywhere. We ask questions, we seek to understand, we give feedback and challenge the status quo. We measure our results and continually grow and improve.

CRITERIA TO EVALUATE PERFORMANCE BASED ON ‘THE HOW’.

Are you customer-obsessed?▪ We act as co-founders and customer advocates seeking to

understand customer needs, relentlessly improve their experience, even in the face of barriers, speak up on their behalf and encourage others to do the same.

▪ We make fact-based decisions, seeking to identify the right objective metrics for customer and business impact and use facts objectively to identify both good and bad outcomes.

Do you share knowledge and solutions?▪ We proactively share information and best practices with

others and encourage others to share. ▪ We reach out to partners, listen to understand their

needs, and actively connect them to people, solutions, and resources they need.

Do you innovate, take risks and strive to improve our products and services? ▪ We experiment, take calculated risks, generate and support

new ideas and encourages others to do the same. ▪ We are curious and drive continuous improvement to increase

the quality of our work to create better products and services.

Do you have a growth mindset?▪ We own successes, mistakes and we’re willing to identify if

something isn’t working and use experiences to grow, develop and focus on solutions in the face of setbacks.

▪ We don’t settle for what we know today, we push to continuously improve our expertise and apply learnings to solve problems, as well as coach and mentor others to grow their skills.

Do you work across team(s)?▪ We look for ways to integrate work within and across

teams, build broader end to end experiences and think beyond individual goals or silos.

▪ We volunteer ourselves to deliver what’s required to see collaborative projects through to completion.

Do you drive different perspectives?▪ Contributes to an environment where people can be authentic,

offer ideas and critiques without fear.▪ We include and involve others and advocate to hear differing

views to drive innovation and better outcomes for our customers.

The How = Demonstration of behaviors

relative to our values central to

performance.

Stereotypes are

cognitive shortcuts or

bugs. We use them

when processing

information.

When assessing an

individual’s

performance, they

unconsciously impact

the standards we use.

Partnership with the

Clayman Institute.

They taught us about blocking bias.

What Was Learned Was a

ChallengeBias embeds itself in every people process

Selection Promotions PerformanceReviews

Rewards

Key Findings

Bias embeds itself in every people process

Women are less likely to be top performers

Different measures: style vs. skill

Feedback to improve & grow

Promotion equality

Guiding Principles

Develop fair and consistent values criteria.

Allocate equal time to evaluate and discuss every person.

Ask everyone to monitor consistency in talent review meetings.

Introduce tools to drive consistency and efficiency.

Pilot promotion flagging for level 1’s.

Train everyone, employees and leaders at all levels.

Own Outcomes Join Forces Work Fearlessly

CRITERIA TO EVALUATE PERFORMANCE BASED ON ‘THE HOW’.

Are you customer-obsessed? Do you share knowledge and

solutions?

Do you innovate, take risks

and strive to improve our

products and services?

Do you have a growth mindset? Do you work across

team(s)?

Do you drive different

perspectives?

Defining and Evaluating the HowDemonstration of behaviors relative to our values

central to performance.

Talent Review ScorecardEmily Engineer, Software Dev Eng IV

The WHAT (directional based on midyear)

2-3 bullets on goal achievement and impact

• 2-3 bullets on goal achievement and impact• 2-3 bullets on goal achievement and impact• 2-3 bullets on goal achievement and impact

The HOW

Owns Outcomes

Customer-obsessed

Growth mindset & learning

Joining Forces

Shares knowledge & solutions

Works across team(s)

Works Fearlessly

Innovation, risk taking & continuous improvement

Drives different perspectives

KEY

Struggling to reliably achieve goals based on expectations at their level

Strong goal achievement based on expectations at their level, may occasionally exceed expectations

Exceptional goal achievement based on expectations at their level; often exceeds expectations

KEY

Ongoing challenge with one or more of our values pertaining to "How"

Exhibits behavior consistent with our values pertaining to "How"

Achieves greater outcomes on the "how"; recognized as role model amplifying our culture

Recommend

HO

W

XWHAT

Opportunities to grow

1-2 bullet(s) on opportunities to grow

• 1-2 bullet(s) on opportunities for growth• 1-2 bullet(s) on opportunities for growth

A timer, YES a timer.

A timer to keep on track & make sure employees are discussed consistently.

Make exceptions if further discussion is needed.

Promotion Flagging Pilot by Levels

Equally consider our employees for promotion. We either promote, or provide specific actionable feedback

to increase likelihood of a future promo.

1 2 3

12 Months 18 Months 24 Months

▪ Spend about the same time evaluating and discussing each

person.

▪ Make sure the “how” and the “what” are covered and equally

weighted for each person.

▪ Make sure that whatever you are using to calibrate is equally

applied to all of your employees.

▪ Tie the what and the how discussion to outcomes and

specific behaviors.

▪ Make sure the decision in rating talent is separate from

concerns about people’s reactions.

Tips for

Great

Talent

Reviews

The results are in.

Style Comments

In 2015, comments relating to personality,

while infrequent, conformed to stereotypically

gendered categories. Men were criticized as

“too soft” or “not aggressive enough” while

women were criticized as behaving too

aggressively

In 2016, for both men and women, there was a

almost a complete elimination of style

comments

Specific

feedback

provided for

areas of

growth/

improvement.

Statistically Eliminated Gender Bias in Our

Calibration

HO

W

Exceptional

Top PerformersBefore: Women 53% Men 76% After: Women 57% Men 69%

Strong

Strong Performers Before: Women 46% Men 18%

After: Women 39% Men 27%

Improve

Improve Strong Exceptional

WHAT

“I'm going to be concentrating on the 'what' and 'how' rather than other

factors such as personality.”

- Employee

“Much more apples to

apples comparison,

much more balanced.”

- Leader

“The focus on outcomes and examples

instead of using vague comments or

emphasizing personality/style.”

- Employee

“Many more people acted as

criteria monitors in all the

calibrations I attended.”

- Leader

“It only took me 5 minutes per employee to

fill out the templates, less than hour in

investment to fill out all the cards of my

team – it’s a pretty light investment to

evaluate my directs thoughtfully. Simple,

easy, and the conversations had a

massive level of consistency.”

- Leader

What They Told Us

Similar criteria across employees

Consistent discussion of all aspects of employee performance and ways to grow and improve

Eliminate discussions of communication style

Thoughtful and consistent prep for talent reviews by managers

Promos flagging can help to ensure no one is forgotten

Our Learnings

Exec team must co-own.

Partners can accelerate change; start with a brave

look at your data.

Massively respected change champions needed.

Don’t boil the ocean; tackle specific areas to effect

real change.

Don’t neglect the well intended, we are all influenced

by cognitive short-cuts.

Experimentation matters when the change is

behavior.

While there’s never an end point, there are moments

to celebrate based on both data and accolades from

employees for saying, “Thank you for making this

process fair.”

Our

Advice

Thank you!

Katee Van Horn, PHR

CEOBar the Door Consulting & Coaching

@kateebar7