When We Are Seen

March 25, 2024
Young debuts with a stirring account of her 21-year career in human resources at Apple, during which she became the company’s first Black female senior executive. She recounts the loneliness she felt in the C-suite surrounded by “people who could not fathom my childhood rooted in a Jim Crow South,” and laments the foot-dragging she faced from white colleagues when she headed the company’s DEI program. Opining on how workplaces can better support employees, Young emphasizes the importance of flexibility and recalls how a team unfairly denied the request of their coworker, who was a single mom, to postpone a morning meeting so she would have time to drop off her children at school. Business leaders must take an active role in addressing inequities, Young contends, lauding Steve Jobs for spontaneously creating a position at Apple for Spelman College’s engineering dean to recruit Black engineers for the company after the dean, on a tour of the corporate campus, struck up a conversation with the CEO. Unlike many other DEI volumes, this book defends inclusivity as an end in itself, rather than a means to higher retention or profits. While Young’s harshest critiques of Apple sometimes shy away from specifics, what comes through is her resilience. This stands out in the crowded field of business memoirs.

April 1, 2024
A look at our crucial need for affirmation. In this insightful book debut, Young, Apple's former chief of human resources and first vice president of inclusion and diversity, makes a compelling argument for bringing empathy and humanity into the workplace. As co-creator of the Apple Store's cultural experiences, Young saw the project as "a people-first proposition" where customers would "want to stay, hang out, and just learn stuff. It was not a transaction" but rather "a total experience that expanded their lives." The author recalls times when she felt truly seen as a child--such as when her dance teachers cast her in a lead role in Cinderella; at Grambling College, where she felt challenged and supported; and as an employee, often the first and only Black female in an executive position, when she was recognized for talents that included deftly translating and interpreting contributions from those who felt marginalized or not heard. Throughout her career in tech startups and at Apple, Young has become deeply convinced of the importance of recognizing, acknowledging, and seeing people as individuals with diverse histories, backstories, and cultures. "The beauty of having more dimensions of humanity represented in more settings," she writes, "is that we are likely to see each other, recognize cultural cues, and be able to act on them, pausing to bring in more clarity and perspective, leaving fewer people behind and psychologically emotionally unaccounted for." When she was offered the position of diversity officer at Apple, friends and colleagues warned her against accepting a job in which she would be expected "to enact change where an invisible, systemic, and ingrained set of beliefs" is impossible to overcome. Although the job proved frustrating, she believes, still, "we can choose to create our own ecosystems of inclusivity, connection, and progress." Thoughtful reflections on race, gender, and human connection.

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