A recent interview performed by Beyond the Bottom Line dove into the topic of why not fitting it at work is not necessarily a bad thing. The report focuses on a Bangladeshi immigrant named Farjana Rohman a VP and product manager at Citigroup. She explains that when she first started her career in finance it was a totally new environment for her.
She noticed most of her co-workers were white men from Ivy League schools. Her being a an immigrant from a state school, she felt different from day one. She also explains that on her first business dinner it was a little overwhelming to see all the forks and knives on the table for different courses since she mainly uses her hands to eat at home. At one point in her career, the feeling of not fitting in felt like it was affecting her professionally by hurting her opportunities for promotions. At one point, she even considered quitting. That was until the CEO of Citigroup, Mike, started to send out company-wide emails about the culture he wanted at the company.
In his emails he talked about how the company needed a diverse group of employees to fill all the needs a company has. He talked about how if everyone at a table is exactly the same, nothing will get done; a profitable company needs people who might feel like outsiders but at the table can form a team that can create new ideas and practices that benefit everyone. Farjana stated that this made her feel like she was in a company of inclusion and this changed her whole perspective. She finally felt that she could have a career at Citigroup.
