“Diversity and inclusion is complex for organizations and vulnerable for individuals,” Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, Microsoft corporate VP and chief diversity officer, said at the company’s Include virtual event.

“It’s complex because it involves all of us. It’s vulnerable because it’s about how we all include and exclude others,” she said, adding that people are bound to get it wrong, especially because it’s so nuanced and personal. “I get it wrong and I spend every day deep in this work, and that can be hard to accept.”

However, companies like Microsoft know how to fail and grow from those failings as part of the cycle of technology development, McIntyre explained. “We can absolutely do this with our diversity and inclusion work too, but we never confuse mistakes with harm. This means never excusing unacceptable behavior, while learning to reduce microaggressions and unconscious bias.” 

Microsoft’s growth mindset and culture embodies its approach to allyship. “We look to allyship to activate inclusion. We think of an ally as a person who makes the intentional decision to understand, empathize, and act in support of another,” she said.

“At its hardest it means paying attention to the pervasive acts of hate and violence toward many communities around the world — the ongoing acts of violence against the Black and African American community, and in this moment in particular, the acts of hate toward the Asian American community,” McIntyre said. “We must pay attention, put aside our fears, and show up for those who need our support.”

A key component of this work involves recognizing the unintentional harm we all propel onto ourselves and others by covering — the act of downplaying a known stigmatized identity to blend into the mainstream. This strategy manifests itself in myriad ways like changing our appearance or attire, our behaviors or activities, who we associate with and advocate for, McIntyre explained. 

Research into this topic shows that 61% of professionals admit to covering in some form in the workplace, and this includes 45% of heterosexual white men. McIntyre invited a group of Microsoft employees to share their stories and reflections to further personalize how covering takes on many forms. 

Kenny Singh, a product manager of cybersecurity and compliance at Microsoft, was diagnosed with an eye condition in his late teens that completely disrupted the course of his life. He planned to become a doctor, and his condition made that impossible. Singh eventually found his calling in computer science and joined Microsoft in 2011.

Soon after, he found himself sitting in the back of a dark room at an annual conference in Australia with about 1,300 people in attendance. Singh had about 25% of his vision at the time, and completely froze when he was called up to the stage. “Don’t be shy, just walk down to the stage,” the person said, in a misguided bid to encourage him. 

Singh confronted two opposing forces then — one telling him to leave Microsoft and never look back, and another to be resilient with the will to say “we’ll make it work no matter what,” he said. So Singh asked a colleague and friend sitting next to him to walk with him arm-in-arm to the stage. 

“It was a very liberating experience because I felt that from that point on I just did not have to cover,” he said. “Sometimes it’s extremely critical to act rather than retreat,” Singh added, comparing the experience to standing on the edge of a cliff prior to taking a bungee jump, complete with all the fear, adrenaline, and exhilaration that entails.

“I actually think of it as the before and after. The before is when I did not accept my story, when I was literally just standing outside and covering, and pretending that I did not have the eye condition at all,” he said. 

“I absolutely was managing peoples’ emotions and expectations because I felt that if I did not cover then I would be perceived as someone who is not as effective or who is just not complete as a human being. That’s how I actually felt at the time,” Singh said. “In the after, when the covering dropped, I actually feel that true allyship is all about deep empathy and a genuine desire to empower someone. It’s not about sympathy, it’s about empathy.”

Mary Ruiz, GM of national and strategic accounts at Microsoft, shared how she sometimes struggles with a fear to portray herself as a heterosexual woman and mother. She’s encountered circumstances at work, especially in conversations with a customer, when she’s felt the need to adopt neutral language to speak about her spouse.

“And then because I have two kids, I always reference the kids, but it is safe because it’s almost assumed it’s heterosexism, meaning the assumption is that I’m married to a man,” Ruiz said. 

She described the physical changes that occur in her body when she feels the need to cover. “I feel like my shoulders are slouching or I’m curving in, as opposed to standing straight back and confident,” Ruiz said. “I feel like the energy that I have is diluted, as opposed to this pure energy that I can put out and share with others and bring to others in my authentic self. And covering is actually really draining.”

When Ruiz decides to cover in some interactions with others today, it’s fundamentally about safety, she said. “As a parent of two children, I am constantly thinking about making sure that there isn’t something that puts them at physical or emotional risk.”

Ruiz has been spat on, called names, and threatened physically. Having grown up in an extremely conservative household, she said she struggles with triggers of being rejected by others, and still experiences that rejection from members of her family to this day.

Her concerns extend to a professional context as well. “Even in the United States, it’s only been since last year, as in 2020, that the U.S. Supreme Court said that workers can’t be fired for being gay or transgender. And who doesn’t want to feel safe, and be able to provide for their family, and be able to provide the emotional and physical security that we’d like to be able to take for granted?” Ruiz said.

Megan Carpenter, director of diversity and inclusion communications, said her objective at Microsoft is to use the art of storytelling to “share experiences and perspectives that are going to connect on an emotional level.” One of the challenges that diversity and inclusion work runs into is the need to make sure those stories don’t come off as exploitative, she said. 

Carpenter also shared a covering story of her own that occurred many years ago, “unfortunately once again, the morning after a Black boy had been shot by the police,” she said.

“It was another work day for a lot of people,” including Carpenter, and her first meeting of the day was a one-on-one meeting with her manager, who quickly picked up on the fact that she was sad and upset. However, “in that moment he actually chose to sort of get in my face a little bit, and instead of taking a pause, challenged me and said: ‘Why are you sad? What’s wrong? Why aren’t you smiling? Whatever’s going on in the world can’t be that bad.”

She reacted with anger and sadness, and wanted to yell, but “in that moment, I chose to cover. I chose not to react to how hurtful that was,” Carpenter said.

“But literally, the act of having to cover my reaction to being told to cover, that’s what this is, that’s why this is important,” she said. “Because even trying to process something like trauma, trying to process the killing of someone that looks like me because they look like me, not having the space to feel that for a couple of minutes at the beginning of the work day.”