Kaia Findlay 0:00
Welcome to the campus energy and sustainability podcast. And 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, energy systems to food systems. You hope you're ready to learn, share, and ultimately accelerate your institution towards solutions. I'm Kaia Findlay, the production assistant for the campus energy and sustainability podcast.

Krista Murphy 0:37
Women have a hard time stating what they want sometimes and it's okay to ask for something it's okay to identify what your personal goals are and to make them known so that others can help materialize that path.

Kaia Findlay 0:56
This episode is the third in our series changing the climate for women, afour part series on women's experiences in the sustainability and engineering fields. My guest for this episode is Krista Murphy, a principal at affiliated engineers incorporated in San Francisco. You'll hear Krista and I discuss how to prevent women from dropping out of engineering mid career, the significance of language and other topics relating to leadership mentorship, communication and gender in the workplace. We hope you enjoyed this conversation with Krista Murphy.

Well, Krista, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast today. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

Krista Murphy 1:40
Thanks for having me.

Kaia Findlay 1:41
To start off Would you be able to tell me who you are and what you do.

Krista Murphy 1:45
I'm Krista Murphy. I work at affiliated engineers or an electrical engineer and I'm a principal in the firm. I lead our San Francisco office which is an office of about 60 people and I'm part of AE's executive team. We've got 700 people nationally, and a small group of us that are guiding some of the firm's efforts on a national level. I was an architectural engineering student at the University of Kansas. And I was interested in civil engineering and architecture. But neither one of those paths were exactly fitting the bell for me when I found architectural engineering, it seemed like the exact combination of right brain and left brain activity. So I studied a lot of lighting design in college, and then eventually moved to California and got a sense of the workplace and realized that my skill set was more toward the project management side of this field than any kind of lighting design and I got my license in electrical engineering, started working on power systems design for buildings and moving toward project management, client management and eventually office management.

Kaia Findlay 2:59
Excellent. I was talking to a friend recently who went to an event at North Carolina State University. And they made an announcement that it was so exciting that 30% of the engineering department were women. And she said, Wow, that's great. But that's still only 30%. So with that in mind, how has gender played a role in your career, your schooling and your experiences in engineering?

Krista Murphy 3:21
Well, I think by the numbers, I've certainly always been part of a minority. There were 18 of us in my graduating college class, and three of us were female. I now in a in a mechanical engineering and piping consulting firm that is 17% technical staff is as female engineers, and I generally have tried to avoid the topic. To be honest, I don't think of myself as a female engineer. I try to be a really good engineer and that served me pretty well for the beginning of my career. I Much more sensitive about my age than I was of my gender. And as I moved through my career, I've realized that there are a lot more people that are more aware of my gender than I originally realized. And that sometimes there's a responsibility that comes along with that. I guess that's the the thought that I've been having the past couple of years that this isn't a topic that should be avoided, but it should be celebrated and discussed in some fashion. Because while 95% of my experiences have been really good, there's always that that 5% of the difficulties that those that are minorities in their fields have to struggle with. And it's important and I carry those.

Kaia Findlay 4:42
Can you tell me about a moment that you realized you had that responsibility to think about and talk about gender? I think that

Krista Murphy 4:49
One of my toughest situations was only a few years ago on a job site where I was the sole representative of my firm dealing with a difficult conversation about a problem that came up on a job site, and I was in a construction trailer, probably with 15 people, general contractors, project managers, subcontractors, and I was in a pretty heated debate over a technical situation that had occurred. And I thought that I was holding my own pretty well. And I was just deep into the conversation with two particular people at the table when someone at the far end of the table just completely unexpectedly stops the conversation and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not get too upset with the only woman in the room. And it stopped me in my tracks. I I was completely derailed from my conversation. My jaw was on the floor. I looked over I did not need that interruption. I did not want that interruption. I didn't think that his comment had anything to do but the conversation at play. It was the first time that I was truly struggling with The situation, months after the fact that I didn't handle it more appropriately in the moment, I carried it with me for a while I talked about it with a lot of other people. I was asking, what would you have done in that situation? Like, normally I can recover? But man, I'm embarrassed, I couldn't recover. I didn't have anything to say, how do you deal with that in the moment, because it really took the rest of my day out of context and made the meeting far less successful than it would have been otherwise. And it wasn't until I was in a women's leadership discussion like a gathering here in San Francisco months later, where we were asked to deal with the question, have you ever had a moment where you wish that you would have handled something differently? Or what would you have done differently in an uncomfortable moment? And I threw the situation out there for the group to deal with and there was silence for a while like, wow, you know, that really sucks and I don't know what I would have done. And finally, a friend of mine, Marianne O'Brien at SmithGroup, just this amazing architect and amazing woman amazing friend says, Krista, I've got it. So Kristen next time that happens say, hey, if this conversation is making you uncomfortable, you're more than welcome to get up and leave the room until it's over. And there was just laughter all around. And I realized that there's just a lot of importance to being prepared for awkward situations that we would all be more successful if we were just a little prepared for what might go down and how we could respond and leaning on each other for dealing with those situations is helpful. And trying to come up with solutions on our own isn't always possible.

Kaia Findlay 7:39
Yeah. And looking back on that situation, what do you do differently to tackle these uncomfortable situations in future scenarios?

Krista Murphy 7:46
I think it's just generally an issue of responding in time. I think it's a matter of listening and not letting someone else at the table get talked over. I think There's issues of just inviting other people to conversation when they're being quiet at the table. There are ways to have group conversations that are inclusive of everyone at the table, and not just some people at the table and that we should have an awareness for that. If there is something uncomfortable that goes down, we have a responsibility to say something. Some of the situations are obvious once was hearing about engineers and their wives, engineers and their wives engineers in their lives, and I finally said, Hey, what about husbands? It was challenging someone that I didn't want to put on the spot. But it's important to call out the language and just make sure that everyone's being inclusive and kind of keep the conversation in check. Definitely, I think we all have to balance with the fact that those situations are so few and far between the actuality of those awkward moments are very, very rare. The problem is when they happen, they stay really hard. And so it's hard to let it go and then the conversation becomes bigger around a rare occurrence, the sting and the conversation becomes bigger when we don't kind of bury our own solutions to it. So I like this concept of not dwelling on it, but having a solution for it and moving on and just know that if that ever comes up again, I've got a response for it. But I don't have to worry about it. And I don't have to talk about it too much.

Kaia Findlay 9:23
Right? And when you're talking about finding a solution, how much of that can come from you taking action, versus the need for a larger party to get involved like a firm itself? Or there's some things you can't solve yourself, even if you're aware of a potentially uncomfortable situation?

Krista Murphy 9:38
Oh, I definitely think about There are all sorts of situations where one individual cannot solve the problem. We need to think about how organizations can be accepting and organizations and to change along with individuals. There are plenty of anecdotal stories either way where an individual may need to change but in other cities Operations an organization needs to be more aware. I think there's a lot to be said about implicit bias training and just encouraging everyone to watch their language. Think about how to be as accepting as possible have multiple races, multiple genders, multiple religions, and our own implicit biases are prevalent with every individual to say that you don't have a bias is just not very accepting of reality. Let's start with all of those folks that don't think they're biased in some fashion. And open up the conversation about what implicit bias is. Let's just recognize that we all have it in some fashion I do. You do. All of our experiences carry forward but if we can normalize that conversation, and try to be a little more careful and being accepting of matters quite a bit.

Kaia Findlay 10:54
How do you think you find enough power within yourself to find a solution and step forward like How do you find the ability to make change happen even when it's beyond your personal control?

Krista Murphy 11:05
There's two things. I mean, on the one hand, I think it's it's important to, to forgive ourselves that there can be awkward moments that maybe we don't know how to deal with. And so we carry it as, Oh, it's my responsibility, I should have handled that differently. We need to forgive ourselves to realize that, okay, this conversation is much bigger than me or the problem is stemming from someone else. I know that I did what I could in that moment. So allowing ourselves to not carry the weight of all of it. That's one thing, but then the responsibility and the courage to speak up and not just let that situation be in the past. But if it really was awkward, wrong or uncomfortable, say something, do something about it. Get a like minded person and carry that conversation to leadership. Get a colleague Who understands your point of view, and circled back with the person who made you uncomfortable in the first place. And sometimes we don't have all of the language to address a situation in the moment. But going back to an awkward conversation, even two days later, is better than letting it sit there for eternity as though it was okay. If it really is wrong, if it really does make you uncomfortable if it really is something that could impact someone else down the road, Catholic courage to address it. But don't feel like that conversation has to be immediate and don't feel like that circling back has to be one person. I like the idea of grab a colleague and have a conversation about it. Even if it went down originally was between two people rest resolving it could be three or more.

Kaia Findlay 12:57
Yeah, definitely. I'd also love to hear more About the Women's Leadership Conference you attended? And what were your takeaways from that? And why did you want to go?

Krista Murphy 13:05
I didn't want to go. Truthfully, I truthfully avoided some of the women's groups over time, because I just don't see that as the focus of my career. But like I said, I've had a little bit of a shift in thinking of the past couple of years because I realized so many other people are so aware of me being a women leader in the firm, that there's some folks who expect me to participate, and to carry the conversation in a different way. I've had men who want to be part of diversity conversation, but don't know where to start and are asking for assistance. And what can I do? I think that we have an opportunity here. So I've been surprised by some of those questions. And I think there's certainly a younger generation that's like, hey, you're a female engineer in this firm. What are you doing as a leader to open the diversity and equity conversation? So it's been those questions and those conversations that probably To me to go ahead and attend di was very encouraged by what I saw and experienced, I've gone to a few events that speak to the topic of mentorship versus advocacy. And I have really carried away from that strong opinion on the responsibility of leaders to advocate for their mentees. so to speak. A mentorship was really just a relationship between two people where advice is being given and two people need to connect and bounce ideas off of each other. But true leadership comes from an advocacy of taking that to person relationship to a broader audience and showcasing someone's strengths to a larger audience on behalf of them, giving them the recognition and the opportunity that might be difficult for them to create for themselves, but having a leader who can be there side by side, and advocating for them is so much more important than just a mentorship situation between those two people alone.

Kaia Findlay 15:07
Did you have a good mentor who helped you figure out what you wanted and guided you to that?

Krista Murphy 15:11
I think I've had many good mentors and advocates along the way. I had a college professor who worked with me through school and talk to me about opportunities going to an architectural firm versus our opportunities, going to an engineering firm and pointed me in the direction of staying with an engineering firm. Don't try to be an engineer and an architectural firm. My leadership skills spoke to being in an engineering environment. And if I was going to be an engineer, I should be an engineer at an engineer's firm, not an engineer at an architect's firm. So that was a mentorship moment that influenced me and and stuck with me. But as I got into the office environment, it was the advocates that really made a difference, not those that were just giving me advice, but Those that were sharing my strengths with the larger group that helped advance me throughout my career. And in particular, I have a partner right now who's done nothing but show me the ropes in terms of some of office operations and my own leadership strengths and weaknesses and encouraged me to see myself not just in the next two years, but in the next 10 years and encouraged a larger national audience for me to allow me to essentially step into the shoes and it just would not have been as smooth if he hadn't advocated for me and taken our conversation to a bigger audience.

Kaia Findlay 16:43
Excellent. Yeah. And how can practicing advocacy beyond mentorship help women in particular?

Krista Murphy 16:49
I think women have a hard time stating what they want sometimes and it's okay to ask for something. It's okay to identify What your personal goals are and to make them known so that others can help materialize that path. I think that there are a number of women that struggle to know exactly what their strengths are or what they would like to see out of their career. And by dialoguing in a mentorship situation, but carrying it into advocacy to advocate for someone, to have an opportunity at a more national level or more regional level is important because there is a nuance there between how men might go about that conversation and how women might go about that conversation. Not in every case, but in some cases, there are some females who could use a little bit of support along the way to carry their voices a little bit more loudly a little bit more definitively and to a larger audience.

Kaia Findlay 18:00
Yeah, that is a good thought. I also wanted to talk about how as a woman and a leader in your field, you've observed communication and what your thoughts are on that.

Krista Murphy 18:10
I've read a book, which is a pretty dated book at this point. But when I was in my 20s, I read a book called Hardball for Women, and pointed out to me so many trends that I saw in terms of women making statements in the form of a question, with the voice going up at the end of a sentence, and not communicating in a definitive sort of way. I watched the language of the beliefs and the things in the fields, where instead of more definitive statements of typically I see this, I recommend that instead of I think this and I feel that I believe this. There was just a lot of language in the book that pointed out to me that women are much tentative in their conversation. And it would be good to have a communication style that was more direct. And there certainly was an element of, of the sports analogy and the team analogy I grew up as a dancer, I did not grow up playing team sports. So some of the team lingo, and the importance of the team lingo was lost on me. But as I observed it and paid attention, I realized that that was definitely a difference between just casual conversation with the men I was working with in the women that I was working with, and that it would not be such a bad thing to speak in terms of a team and how winning is not a bad thing, but we need to move towards success as a group. And so I just had like these nuances and in my communication style that I was able to shift and observe over time and even point out to others. As I've watched some women present over the years, there's just been little trends that you can Talk about on the side perhaps with someone where they don't even realize that they're making statements in the form of a question. But if someone could just point that out to them, it really brings some attention to communication style and can influence how someone's perceived going forward.

Kaia Findlay 20:17
Did it take you a long time to shift your own speech and work on your communication?

Krista Murphy 20:21
I would say it probably took me a very long time to shift my changes in speech I think I'm still working on that constantly. Volume is a very hard thing for me I'm I naturally do not like to speak very loudly in front of a group and I am constantly called out on that to this day, that my voice is just too soft and that I need to speak up. So I think we all have strengths and weaknesses and we need to continue to be aware of it. I was a coach for a little while for my girls softball teams and there was nothing like a bunch of kids that made me have to be loud. So sometimes just putting, putting myself in an uncomfortable situation here I am, you know, I wasn't the sports player. As I said, I was more of a dancer and now I'm coaching a bunch of girls who need me to speak up and yell at them at times really made me challenge myself on something that I knew in the workplace I needed to work on. Not that I need to yell at everyone, but I certainly needed to speak up and I was told that over and over and over again, so I've tried to put myself in situations that helped me do that.

Kaia Findlay 21:23
And are you worried about admitting weaknesses like needing to speak louder as a woman in the workplace?

Krista Murphy 21:29
I try to be a pretty transparent person I it doesn't faze me to say that I have all sorts of things that I'm working on. volume in my speeches one on there are plenty of other opportunities for me to improve. I think that the more we can share those, the better, we can make change. I joke about the volume topic in our office, Toastmasters meeting, so I have a lot of colleagues who know that they can give me the signal. You know, thumbs up, like talk louder, talk louder, or compliment me after a meeting when they could hear every word that I said. And it's kind of encouraged me along the way by admitting this faults and laughing about it with others, that I realized they're less inclined to hold back and more inclined to give me feedback, which I really appreciate it, because then it makes me better and I have less of those awkward moments going forward. So I think it's important to share what our perceived weaknesses are. And I equally think it's important to share our strengths. Not everyone can be good at everything. And sometimes as organizations, we want people to change in ways that it just doesn't speak to their strengths. So I think that pointing out strengths of other people and say you're particularly good at organizing the high level discussion or you're particularly good at diving deep into a technical topic, or you're particularly good at graphics, and we could use your participation in the wider, wider array of projects in how you demonstrate technical concepts graphically, I think there's so much benefit to pointing out both strengths and weaknesses and playing to those those traits in both directions for every individual.

Kaia Findlay 23:16
And as a final question, I'm curious how you think conversations about gender can improve broader goals of advocacy and equality in the work field.

Krista Murphy 23:25
We all benefit from having some balanced workplaces and the numbers that I stated at the beginning of this call, just really speak to the fact that we're not balanced yet. And we need to continue to move into a direction where men and women are are both at the table in leadership positions up and down throughout an organization. And I think it's important to not lose women in the engineering field, mid career, I think that's a real problem. That there are some work Like challenges that hit particularly for folks in their 30s for anyone who's got a new family that we have a responsibility to try to be flexible and allow those folks to stick with the field, so that by the time we get to leadership positions later on in the career folks are still at the table and the books are still working. And being part of a professional community. The lack of women that that C suite level is probably most born out of some of the challenges like mid career and keeping women opportune is one of the biggest conversations.

Kaia Findlay 24:39
Awesome. Well, thank you again, so much for this opportunity to talk together. Thanks. That's it for this episode. A huge thank you to Krista for her time and energy in making this episode possible. Thanks as well to Dave Karlsgodt for his production assistance and support. If you'd like to follow our show on social media, our Twitter handle is @energypodcast, or find us on LinkedIn by searching campus energy and sustainability podcast. If you'd like to support the show, please consider leaving a rating or review on iTunes or send a link to a friend. As always, thanks for listening