Women at Work - Aging Up, Not Out

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

As we grow older, we have to deal with not only sexism at work but ageism too. Still, age has its advantages. We talk with an expert on aging, and then we share personal experiences and answer questions from listeners. Guests: Nancy Morrow-Howell and Maureen Hoch. Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

Over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. Amy B., I'm really glad we're talking about aging at work on this episode. Yeah, this has been something I've wanted to take on for a while with this group, partly because we have talked quite a bit about what it's like to be a young woman in the workplace. And I've learned a lot, and I have dim memories of what it was like. But I come at it from the other side. And I think that women who are in their 50s and even their 60. And as someone who's approaching those age groups, I think that it is much harder to show up, to be taken seriously, and to be seen in the workplace when you're not, you know, bright and young and dewy.

All right, we've got a lot to cover. Yes, we do. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Amy Gallo. Nicole's on vacation this week, so it's just us Amys. Well, not really just us. We're going to talk to two other women about what it's like to grow older at work. First up is our guest expert, Nancy Morrow Howell. She's a social policy professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and she directs the University Center for Aging. So, Nancy, thanks so much for joining us. You are welcome. Let's start with the work you do with freshmen, your students. You teach a class

on aging? I do. I teach 75 freshmen. So some of them aren't even 18. Most of them are, but they're just freshmen to Washington University. And in the class, I have at least 15 older students who come from a community organization that I work with around the campus. So we have a mixture of young people and older people, and it's a class on their long lives. We say, you know, you can expect to live to your eighth and ninth decade. A lot of them will see 100. What do they need to do now to be thinking about this longevity? And what especially do they need to be changing in terms of our social institutions, our programs, our policies to enable a long, healthy life? So it's just the funnest course. I'm really excited about it.

So when you're teaching this class, what do you tell them about yourself as an older worker? I definitely share some personal things about myself as an older person. So it generally hasn't been too much about my work life. I've definitely shared it about some changes I've experienced physically. I'll share that with them. Some caregiving experience that I had personally, some family experiences I've had. So I definitely share, but I can't imagine teaching this class without older students that I can rely on them as well and ask them about their experiences in the workplace and the sort of multiple careers they felt they had in the job and sometimes that they felt discrimination in the workplace. So I think people are really open to sharing their experience and the younger students are interested. And have you noticed that since you've identified as an older adult that people treat you differently? I think people do treat me differently.

I'm in a very privileged position, you know, being a faculty member with an endowed professorship at WashU. So I can't complain about much. But even in that pretty privileged environment, I do feel like people treat older adults differently. We are very ageist still, and I have become more aware of that, mainly because I'm studying it more too. But the concept of implicit bias, that we're just not even aware of how ageist we are when we interact with people or think about our organizations. And I hear plenty of older people say that they just sense that they are viewed as more irrelevant. You know, they say invisible, but I think irrelevant is more the word. And, you know, age discrimination is illegal on paper, but older adults are still often treated differently in terms of opportunities

offered, leadership positions offered, just a sense of being overlooked for new engagements, especially in the world of employment when people have gotten out of an employment situation, whether it's through downsizing or they stepped out to be a caregiver, getting back in, they feel very overlooked, that their applications aren't taken seriously or viewed as competitively. Right. Do you have any advice for people who might be going into the job market to brace themselves for that, for the fact that they are going to be discriminated against? Well, if I'm remembering my statistics right, an older person, an older worker, and that's pretty young.

An older worker might be 55 plus, I think. I think that the younger worker, it took 36 weeks to find a new job, and the older worker, it took 50 some odd weeks to find a new job. So to me, that says it takes longer, but apparently it happened. People are getting these jobs. So are there things that we shouldn't say? Are there any landmines we can avoid? Well, I do think it's to not use anything that yourself is ageist. Any talk about seeing your moments or, you know, you're maybe rusty in the technology.

You know, none of that can happen. You have to get on top of that. And if it's true, you have to get on top of it and not be looking for jobs where that's important. So let me ask you, well, actually, I'd love to pass along a question from one of our listeners. Christina writes to us, we are a cohort of 50 to 60-year-old women who are productive, capable, experienced with wisdom and the ability to see context. And she says, in the workforce, because of our age and our gray hairs, we are seen as not technically capable, which she says is not true, not forward-thinking, not entirely true, she says. Perhaps too experienced and expensive and after a workforce reduction, not entirely true, she says, perhaps too experienced and expensive, and after a workforce reduction, not a candidate to hire. She asks, are these anecdotal observations valid? Are they validated by research? So I think that she is right that those are the common

perceptions. I think most of them can be invalidated through research. There was a lot of them in there. But the more expensive part, because people have been on a job a long time and there's a cost of living increase and time, you know, generally leads to raises, older workers' salaries can be higher. But the cost of training people and replacing people who aren't as committed to a job overruns those costs. And in fact, despite older adults being more, having higher risk for different chronic conditions, there's less absenteeism among older workers. So a lot of those things we can confront with the facts. I think older workers have to, you know, just keep it up. They have to work on self-development.

They have to work on staying digitally competent. There's no resting on any laurels. And that takes energy. And people of any age need to do it. But older workers are accused of not having as much energy. And so we need to make sure that we're demonstrating that, yeah, we do. How have you been doing that yourself? You know, I try. I try to do this to myself.

And I just had the interesting observation, in fact, in regards to this, what I'm doing right now, being interviewed by you all. There's sort of on our CVs of older workers, it's always challenged. They can't be, here's 20 pages and all my experience. Like, who cares? You know, it has to be really short and, you know, well-framed. And there's new sections of CVs, like all your social media stuff, right? And your different opportunities and maybe the podcast or the blog or the media coverage. And I need to pay more attention to that kind of stuff in my CV or just on my web page because it's not something that I'm used to.

Right. How do you stay on top of what is happening? I mean, I'm 45 and I have to say I feel pressure to also stay on top of. My 12-year-old daughter was shocked I knew what TikTok was, for example, the other day. Right. And I'm curious how you have stayed on top of what needs to be done in these regards. Yeah. Well, I haven't 100% because it really is hard. I'm just lucky because I'm in an environment surrounded by young people. I have good relations with my kids and grandkids. So I just try to be exposed and not say, oh, I don't like that stuff, you know, but try to figure out what it is. So I think that maybe that's a good example of sort of the energy that it takes. It doesn't happen just by you not being proactive. So I think that's why some people do eventually want to step back and retire and

say, oh, I don't want to put in that energy anymore. I'm ready to do something different. So a lot of women feel that, you know, they kind of disappear as they get older in the workplace. What are your thoughts on that? I'm interested both sort of practically and emotionally. I have the sense from colleagues that I talk to and a bit of my experience. So there's just an overlooking that has to do because people are turning to folks that are a little younger. For me, I often think it's so common when people ask me,

when are you going to retire? And I think, hmm, I'm thinking about it, but I'm wondering if that means they think I should, you know, or they are giving me a hint. But it's a very common question to older people. When are you going to retire? And I think that carries a lot of emotional messages, too, where you begin to question yourself or your relevance or your competency. So that's one way that I see it. So you're in a meeting and the group turns to the younger person at the table. How do you handle that if you're an older woman in this meeting and you feel that you have something to contribute on the topic, on the subject at hand? Well, I think that for myself, I just have to know that I do have something to contribute and not accept being overlooked,

unless it's warranted. I mean, I want my younger colleagues to take leadership. I'm tired of some of these things. You know, more power to them. I want to help them do it. I just don't want experience and the more mature worker, you know, voice to just be excluded just for ageist reasons. So you would advise asserting yourself appropriately. Yeah, asserting yourself appropriately and have good things to contribute. I do think there's also a funny kind of a slippery slope. People say, don't say, well, when we did this then and 40 years ago, and don't drag up the old history lesson when you're presenting an idea. But I do feel so often I can frame something in a historical perspective.

Like we tried that a handful of years ago, and this is what worked and this is what didn't work. But just be careful that you're not the one who always starts with a long story from how we used to do it. Yeah. I want to go back to what you said about people asking you about when you're going to retire. How do you respond to that question? Well, very honestly, because I have been thinking about it, I've always said that I would work till I'm 70 and then I'd start some sort of a step-down plan. So I say that to people because all the colleagues around me are thinking about it and talking about it. And I don't think people are trying to be mean or imply that I should be. I think they're generally curious because it's such a kind of normal thing that's expected, you know, of people in their mid-60s. It's certainly

changing. But, you know, next time I think I'm going to ask the person, tell them my answer, then say, I'm wondering why you asked that. What are you thinking? Or what are you thinking about me? See if I can discover what people are thinking when they ask me that question. Well, and it might force them to reflect on why, right? Because this is often implicit bias. It might encourage them to reflect on what caused you to ask that question. Right, right. Yeah. So if you sense, as you as an older woman in the workforce, that you're not getting the same kind of professional development opportunities as your younger colleagues, how do you bring that up with your boss or with HR? Well, I don't know about you guys, but we have annual reviews that include our self-perceptions and include our desires for what we need to improve and how we

might do it. So I would make sure that I had a very well-developed and articulated plan for myself for professional developments with real concrete things that I could do. You know, don't leave it to anybody's imagination, but to say, here's what I need and here's how I can get it done. And how do you, if you are a manager, how do you make sure that you're not overlooking your older workers in the way that we've talked about? What can you be on the watch out for whether this implicit bias is coming up or not? Right. What advice to give except for just to be aware, be aware that we do it so naturally and with so much permission, you know, in our society to be ageist. So I guess it just comes down to self-awareness, but building it into different types of development programs for managers and supervisors. I mean, one of the things that strikes me is that much of the implicit bias toward older workers can often be confused with empathy, that you're trying to, you know, think about, well, this person must want to spend time with their grandchildren, or they must be tired, or they're, and I think one tactic for a manager might also be to just watch out for how when those protectivist attitudes come into play, are you really doing right by your older workers if you're just so concerned about them?

Yeah, I love that point. Two things. One, we're very paternalistic. In fact, there's a thing called compassionate ageism, which is, you know, which is very... You just know what that is without even having to explain it. Right. And it's very paternalistic. I need to protect, I need to relieve, to take care of, support, because, you know, most people think all older adults need help. So I think a question we can always ask ourselves and our employees, you know, what does age have to do with this? You know, generally the answer is not a lot because we think age means someone can't do something or they must not want to do something. But individual motivation and preference and capability and function, all of those things are not about age necessarily. Yeah. We've talked a lot about the challenges. I just want to make sure we spend just a few

minutes talking about the benefits. What are the benefits for older workers as they, you know, especially people who are working, you know, past age 65, for example? Yeah. Oh, there's so many. I mean, number one, we have to work longer because we don't have the savings that we need to live so long after we stop working. So, you know, there's pressure to keep working because we have to, but because we want to. And we know that working in general produces health for people. Cognitive health, social health, physical health, those things are good. Now, that's not true for all workers. It depends on your job. You know, being in a real heavy-duty, physical, hard work isn't necessarily good. But when people have the social connections

and the cognitive engagement, we can certainly show that that helps people maintain and improve their health. Are there benefits in having all of that experience from having been around the block, sort of knowing how things go, that accrue as you get older? Yes. the maturity. I think that it allows people to have a different perspective, more of a long run kind of a perspective that they can find the positive and withstand the negative a little bit more since they've been around the block. So you might say that older workers, older women in the workforce are more resilient? Yeah, I think so. They are by definition, you know, that they've been around the block and are still there. So there's a certain resiliency, certain survivorship, right, to these folks.

And then there's also the experiences taught people how to, I'm going to say, you know, since we're using these phrases, roll with the punches a little bit more. So in general, older people are able to roll with the punches a little bit better. So as a 45-year-old, I'd love to know what you think I should be anticipating, thinking about now as I set myself up for this later aspect of my career? What do I need to know going into my 50s, 60s, and hopefully my 70s? Yeah, I was looking at something, at some advice to older workers in some writing the other day, and it said, you know, my generation particularly, and maybe it's not too different with your generation, you know, we were used to long careers with companies. And so when that ends, we have less of a, I did this and I've done this and I've done this across different types of

organizations and different types of skills. So this piece of advice that I think is very hard advice was, you know, to have some alternative kind of skills and knowledge and potential careers. You know, that's hard. So I'm not sure that that would be easy for me to advise you. But they were saying we need to have more options available for working. So we need to keep our skills and connections diverse. Right. I think that's a hard piece of advice, but it does sound downright. Yeah, I agree. And I think it's good advice. I mean, I think we talk a lot about side gigs and having other interests and non-paying careers. And I think that all of those could come to bear

in the way you're talking about. Nancy, thank you so much for talking with us today. Oh, I've enjoyed it. What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're

able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. Hey listeners, if you want to hear from more leaders to help you answer questions like, should I talk about my anxiety at work? Or how do I claim my leadership power? Then you should listen to TED Business, hosted by Columbia Business School professor Madhupe Akinnola. The show features TED Talks about everything from setting smart goals to

the latest on DEI in business, followed up with a mini lesson from Mudupe on how to apply these lessons in your own life. Listen to TED Business wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, who's here in the studio with us? Well, not Nicole, because she is on vacation, but in Nicole's seat is Maureen Hoke, who is the editor of HBR.org and the supervising editor of this show. She listened in to our interview with Nancy, and she's going to talk with us about what we heard and what we think about this issue. Maureen, thanks so much for joining us. Hello, Amy's.

It's really nice to be here. Hello, singular Maureen. The. Maureen, thanks so much for joining us. Hello, Amy's. It's really nice to be here. Hello, singular Maureen. The only Maureen. So let's talk about our conversation with Nancy. Amy, when she says the older worker is 55 or older, that includes you. How do you feel about that? Oh, you didn't hear me sniffing and shedding a tear? You know, the thing about this whole topic for me is that I'm 59. You notice I had to pause to say it. But I feel like I'm at the top of my game. So to hear that 55 is considered an older worker and to understand how freighted that expression is, was kind of painful for me, I'll be honest with you. Yeah. And, I mean, did you anticipate, like, even in your 40s, I mean, Maureen, we're both in our mid-40s, like, did you anticipate that you would feel at the top of your game at the age you're at?

I wasn't sure what to anticipate. And honestly, you know, I remember each landmark birthday, I would sort of do a little mini assessment of where I was and ask my, you know, it wasn't a formal thing, but, you know, I didn't know where I wanted to be at any given age. But I knew, for example, that I wanted to hit a certain position. I wanted to be a senior editor by the time I was 40, or I wanted to oversee a section by the time I was 45. But I would know that from the vantage point of being 39 or 44. If you feel

yourself slipping behind your cohort, you start to focus on stuff like that. Right. But I'm not sure if I felt that I would had, you know, lapped my cohort, I would have been thinking like that. Right. Yeah. I have a good friend who turned 50 recently and I asked her, I was like, well, what is it like? She's like, it's great. You start shedding your goals. Yeah. At first I sort of gasped when she said that. And then later I was thinking about it. I'm like, that sounds awesome. Can I get rid of some of my goals?

You know what you realize is that a lot of those goals are meaningless. Right. It's interesting how we assign values, though, to certain ages. Amy G. and I went to hear a case over at Harvard Business School a couple of weeks ago, and it was about recruiting new talent. And the professor cited some study that showed you're young until you're 38. And then at 58, I wrote down 38 young, 58, you're done. You know, that like something about the age of 58, like you are suddenly past the point that you can be considered even close to be considered young but it's such a strange idea to me because so much of this is like your attitude toward it totally i mean it's not

your age is one part of it and it is a big part of what you show to other people in terms of what they assume about you but that also pretends like we don't have any control over our performance during that time that doesn't seem right to me. No, I don't think so. Well, and I think this idea that what you're talking about, you may be about at a certain age, you're going to achieve X. And at the next age, you're going to achieve Y. That to me feels like almost a young person's view. Yes.

Of how it happens. And I think even when you're 38 or younger that you think I'm going to achieve these things. I'm going to have a kid by a certain time, or I'm going to, like you said, be a senior editor by a certain time or manage X number of people by a certain time. I think you're right. The older you get, you're sort of like, eh, do I care so much? Well, also those milestones seem so meaningful when you don't understand them. But when you get a little closer to them, you really see that there's so much more. And the thing that we didn't get into, but it's emphatically true.

So when you hit a certain stage of your life, you lose a lot of your fear. And you lose a lot of the inhibitions that come with that fear. And that is the most liberating thing I can imagine. And I wouldn't go back to my 40s for anything. I have loved my 50s and I'm so looking forward to my 60s because it's just getting better. It just feels a lot better to me being me now than it did 10 years ago. all these things, just like you described, Amy B. Unfortunately for Amy G and I, it bottoms out in your mid-40s. It's like a time of your life where you are letting go of some of those expectations. But I feel like I am in my mid-40s much more comfortable with myself than I've been any other time. And it gets better, Maureen. And then it gets better. And then the you picks up and the

50s, like you really start to regain a lot of that happiness you had in your 20s. Yeah, 40 was really tough. You know, I think it was a time of understanding all of my, you know, my kind of inchoate life goals that, you know, that they were all so empty. And they weren't making me happy when I was getting there. Right. That's a great moment for me, or was a great moment, just to sort of say, no, I got to rewrite this all. This is not working. Yeah. I got to refigure all of this. So, and you're painting a very hopeful picture, Amy B., which I love.

But I want to also talk about all the negatives that Nancy pointed out. The being invisible, the being overlooked for things, being assumed you're out of touch. Yeah. Does that ring true for you? Oh, totally. Totally. I mean, one thing you learn as you get older is that if you want something, you've got to ask for it. Yeah.

I mean, that's good advice at any age. Absolutely. Why is it more important when you're older, though? Because I think the opportunities tend not to come your way as fast. Right. If you're an older woman. Yeah. And I'm sure it's true if you're an older man as well. But some of what Nancy was saying suggested that a lot of people assume that as people, as their colleagues get older, that they don't want to continue to learn and grow. And so you have to communicate somehow that you want that opportunity to develop. You want to go to that conference, whatever it is. And asking for it is the way you communicate that.

That question about, are you ready to retire? Are you going to retire? I remember my mom, my mom retired at 72 last year. And she, I think for the past 10 years, said she got asked that question on a weekly basis. And it drove her crazy. How did she deal with it? Well, I mean, I think partly she dealt with it by knocking it out of the park in her field and just tried to show I am still at the top of my game. I am still going to have wins. You are not putting me out to pasture as much as you may try. And really saying, I think her response, I'm sure she had different responses, different times, but I heard her say, I'll retire when I'm ready. Good for her. Right. And to really show she was in control. Because I think she felt pressure to leave.

And she owned her own business. She had people who were younger than her who were eventually going to take over and have now taken over. And I think she felt like people were trying to push her out the door. Oh, God. What an awful feeling that must have been.

Yeah, and I don't know how you deal with that, especially this idea of being overlooked or invisible. But how do you make yourself visible? And maybe that's not even the answer. Maybe the answer isn't to be more visible. Maybe the answer is to accept that people see you as invisible and you're still going to succeed. You're still going to do what you're going to do. I think it's what Nancy said about you do have to put effort into staying on top of your game.

You know, I mean, this is something that I think about in the context of working in digital media where I have worked for many years. And I worry about this a lot, that I've always been part of the team that's the young web team that's sort of coming in to be the rabble rousers and like shake up the establishment. So like, at what point do I become like part of that establishment or what part, at what point do I seem to lose the air of someone who can manage that kind of work? And so to do that, I really did believe and agree with what Nancy said, that you have to put work into staying on top of that. And some of that is, and we've written about spending time with people that are different from you. I like the idea of age as a form of cognitive diversity. I think women especially make a mistake when they say, oh, well, that's for the young people. And I can't possibly understand

that, you young people. No, you know, like that's I don't accept that. And I think there are ways for you to stay on top of what you're doing that will keep you current and keep you fresh. But it's not like those are easy things to do. You have to put effort into it. So how do you do that? I mean, I use many different strategies for that. Some of it is definitely, you know, hiring people who are who bring some of that to the table. I use a very elaborate system of Twitter feeds and newsletters and also just talking to people. I think you really have to be naturally interested in it, though. If all of that totally felt like work to me, I think it would be much harder to do.

And I think it's something that I'm passionate about and that helps a lot. One thing I do, and now I'm not on the cutting edge of your world, your digital world, your young person's digital world. No, but one thing I do is when I hear a reference to something I don't know, I always write it down and look it up. Oh, yeah. Or I ask in the moment. Right. I mean, I'm not ashamed of not knowing. Right. I do think that once you give up on that, once you've lost your curiosity, the game's over. You have to stay curious about it. And you have to also believe in yourself that this can be part of your world. Yeah.

That it's not somebody else's world. And that's where I think being able to talk about age, the benefit of experience, is something that I think is hard for us to talk about sometimes. Like it can, as a young person, maybe you sort of eye roll at someone saying, I have more experience at this than you do. But the fact of the matter is that experience is then what makes you so valuable as someone to be a mentor or to give advice or to just help guide the people on your team. You know, I wish that we had a different word for it sometimes then. What do you, okay, I have to ask, okay boomer. Yes, let's discuss that. Let's talk about okay boomer.

Wait, can we just pause for a moment? And Maureen jokingly said okay boomer to me on Slack the other day. I did, I did. And I was like, I feel like she's outing us as older people. OK, but you're not a boomer. We're not boomers. I know, but don't you feel like it's a way to say you're old? Like, it doesn't matter if you're a boomer or not.

It's just a way to say you're out of touch. Yeah, you don't get it. That's what I hear. That's what it is. That's what I hear with OK Boomer. Like, oh, you're just so involved with yourself that you can't possibly get it. I find it so dismissive. There is something that's dismissive about it.

And yet there's also, for me, on sort of the cusp of becoming an older worker, there's part of me that's like, what can I learn from this? You have 10 years. I know. But it feels like the cuff. It really does. I know. A decade long cuff. But to me, it's a warning of don't become out of touch.

Yeah, totally. That's true. Rather than it feeling dismissive, I'm thinking, okay, how do I avoid that being something someone wants to say about me? Well, and on the other hand, have you ever been around someone who's trying to be hip? Yeah. You know, someone who's trying to be hip? Yes. You know, someone who's just trying to talk to the kids and the kids lingo and all that. I mean, it just, I was reading, did you guys see that article that published recently about OK versus KK? Yes.

Yeah. And like OK with an exclamation point is OK, but a simple OK without an exclamation point is like stamping your foot yeah and kk is what you're supposed to say yes and if you ever get a text from me either of you that says kk the next question ought to be when are you retiring because that is just never going to come out of my mouth or off my fingertip so i love this because this gets to the question of how how much should we be talking about age like how much should we be pointing out that you will never write kk right or if so if someone writes that to you do you you write back? Oh, I would now, you know, how do you, well, someone writes KK to me. I know what they're talking about, but I'm still going to

say, okay. Right. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's fine. I guess, you know, we've always worshiped youth. That's just, that's just the human condition, but, but you can make a decision on your own not to be, you know, that icky person. So this feels like an important question for me, maybe because I have a 12-year-old. And I'm trying to figure out how not to be the cool mom who's like, oh, I get TikTok. I watch, you know. Right. And I don't want to be that at work either.

You know, Nicole's not here, but Nicole knows that sometimes I'll go, can you please explain how Snapchat works? I don't get it. that at work either you know it's fine nicole's not here but nicole knows that sometimes i'll go can you please explain how snapchat works i don't get it right yeah and she's so generous and and helping does she have to stifle a giggle she smiles yeah she definitely smiles and inside she's roaring with laughter okay but so how do you navigate that of being acknowledging that you are somewhat out of touch and yet not sort of putting yourself in that corner of I'm going to be dismissed or I'm so old or, you know, how do you navigate that? You're looking at me? I'm looking, well, do you, I mean, here, let me rephrase that. Do you mention your age or your experience or your maturity at work intentionally or do you leave it out unintentionally? Do I bring it up a lot? I've never heard you bring it up. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I am, look at me.

Right. No one's going to think I'm 24 years old. Right. But Amy Bernstein, I've heard you do this well in meetings when sometimes we'll be talking about something and you'll say, let's not forget what's important here. It's the idea or it's the, you know, you have a way of guiding people back to what's important. That's my job, though. Right. But that's part of, I think, what you bring to that without having to be like, KK, let's snap that to the TikTok. Yeah, let's snap that. I'll slack you on that later. Do you slack on or you slack it? Is it transit or in transit? Questions you should never ask.

But you also don't say, in my X number of years in publishing, what I've found is important. So that kind of statement is always born of insecurity. I have never heard anyone say it in a way that didn't make me cringe. I think it's more being confident about what you know and what you're bringing. You don't have to know like all of those ins and outs to be a good leader of that project or that team or what have you. And it's just as important to know what you don't know so that you can turn to someone and say, okay, is this appropriate for Snapchat? Exactly.

Right? Yeah. And trusting those people. I mean, I think that is something like letting those people run with it. Yeah. I'm sensing a theme here of just having confidence in your experience and confidence in your place in in in the organization or in life because there's i mean that's what we were talking about earlier of you know just feeling comfortable in your own skin and that's what we're talking about here is that there's no need to prove there's no need to prove

you have decades of experience and there's also no need to prove that you know what on fleek means although that's like now five years old. You don't have to see how hip I am. I even know that's five years old. But you don't have to prove it. You just are comfortable where you are. Well in my nine years of being a worker

in her fifties I would say but I think you're right Amy G. I think that there are enough insults that come with being a woman in your 50s that you have to grow a thicker skin and you have to figure out a way to deal with the emotional challenge of disappearing, which does happen, you have to respond to it in a way that's constructive and feels right to you and that allows you to look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day. And that cannot possibly include acting out of insecurity.

Right. business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. All right, Amy and Maureen, let's take a listener question, okay? This is from Teresa, and she wants to get into the conundrum of not being ready to stop climbing the ladder, combined with the fear of leaving a safe job. She says that she's 56, single, empty nest, good health. I'm reading her question

right now. She plans on working until she's 67-ish. The issue is that in her current company, she's doing the same level work she's been doing for the past 15 years or so with no path for promotion. She'd love to continue to grow and move into a director level position, but the prospects for changing jobs seem frightening at best and impossible at worst. She'd love to hear from us about how to continue to move, stepping a little more carefully up the ladder after 50. What are your thoughts? I mean, based on what we heard from Nancy,

I think no one would say this is easy. This is going to, yeah, go put yourself on the job market. You'll face no discrimination. You'll be considered right along with people who are much younger than you. So I think she's right to say it's going to be frighteningent. I don't think she should just settle for that. Right. And there's no reason she can't start applying for jobs, see what happens while she still has this job. Because she doesn't necessarily jeopardize her current job. Exactly.

So I think it's worth putting herself out there to see what sort of response she's going to get. When I look at this, the first thing I think of is she's in a place in her life where she can do that, right? Like not everyone at 56 is in that position, right? You know, you might have to stay in that really, really smart in your job for, you know, other reasons. But I do think that, yes, it might not be easy, but hopefully she's got a network and she's got ways that she can start looking for the kinds of opportunities that would check those boxes for her. Also, she can tell a good story. Absolutely. You know, it's how she frames this story, why she's looking for a job after doing the same thing for 15 years.

She can tell a story about needing a new challenge and feeling like she has a lot to bring to the organization. And that would show she's got energy, right? If she's willing to leave, and that could be part of her story, I'm willing to leave this safe job because I have so much more to give and so much more I want to do. And I love a challenge. Yeah. One of the things I'm realizing as I've kind of moved in my career is one of the things that's difficult is the number of openings, let's say, or opportunities that align with your current role become fewer and fewer. So that is a challenge. Whereas, you know, maybe when I was 30, the world was my oyster, right? I could do this, that.

I could be this kind of editor or that. And then suddenly as you go up in your career, you climb the ladder, as she says, the number of roles that are similar to what you're doing now start to feel like they're fewer and far between, which is where you need to have a good network or you need to have a good sense of your industry, I think, in order to stay on top of that. Or figure out in what industry your skills could be put to use. In a new way. In a new way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sometimes changing context is really energizing. Maybe that's what you need. Yes. Yeah. We got another question from a listener named Mary who had recently read something about how women in their mid 40s and 50s are able to explore new opportunities because their children are grown and their responsibilities toward family are fewer.

But she's saying, you know, what about those of us who are in our mid-40s and 50s and still have children that we're raising? She has two 10-year-old twins. And she asked, how do we handle the pressures of high-end careers, menopause, and crazy schedules? How do we find time to be moms and leaders, all while dealing with the complexities of aging? I totally, I hear you, Mary. I'm 45 and I have a five-year-old, so, you know, this is sort of in my future. I think, first of all, you sort of need to understand how to prioritize what's important. And I think this is something that women in particular face a really tough choice sometimes between, do I want to be a great mom or a great person at my job or a great friend or a great whatever? I just think you do have to make some choices about how you're going to spend your time.

But I don't think that means that you can't have the career that you want because you have those other things going on. I think that's where sometimes we get tripped up. So a lot of this does come down to things like, do you have a supportive partner or do you have support around you to help you be a parent and help you do the things you want to do for your job or for your life or other things that are just really important to you personally? I would say without that support, it's really hard.

Yeah. And I think about our episode on maternal optimism, too, and the way that, you know, being a mom can make you better at your job. Working can make you a better mom. And I think it's true also that for all the reasons we've talked about, older women tend to be more resilient have better perspective on their those are all things that can contribute to both being a mom and to being an employee oh they know how to get stuff done oh yeah let's just be clear on that yeah that is that is the the open secret of management right right yeah there's a woman at my gym who I talk to regularly who just had her first kid at 49.

And, you know, lots of people will ask her, very bluntly ask her, how old are you? And she'll tell them and she'll say, you know, we waited for a variety of reasons, but I feel like I'm in the best place in my life to be a mom. And I just think that, you know, to acknowledge for Mary, you have all of these pressures and yet you also have all this life experience that helps you prioritize, helps you put things in perspective, that's going to help your kids be raised in a way that by someone who knows what they want and is focused on all of these things that are important and just has sort of direction. I mean, I think there's just positive.

And she's a goddess of time management. She's at the gym. I know. Wow. I know. We have no excuses. Yeah, my gym friend is very impressive, I have to say. But can we also talk about menopause for a second?

Sure. That is part of Mary's question. And I have to say that as someone who's going through menopause for a second sure that that is part of mary's question and and i have to say that as someone who's going through menopause i definitely see ways in which it's impacting my my work either you know up all night with hot flashes but there's so little advice for women out there about how to navigate this at work yeah and i wonder if either of you have any thoughts or advice we actually have a couple of pieces we're working on for hbr.org on this topic and some of at work. Yeah. And I wonder if either of you have any thoughts or advice. We actually have a couple of pieces we're working on for HBR.org on this topic.

And some of it is about just the reality of the number of women, say between ages 45 and 55 in the workplace, going through this, you know, physical, going through this time in their lives, the change.

Yes, the pause. And what, you know, first, how do they advocate for themselves? But I think it's really tricky because I personally, even if I had another health issue, say, that's, you know, related to my age, how much do I want to disclose about that? And how much do I want people to feel like it might affect my decision making? Or just to think about you that way. Yeah. Right. Do I want people to feel like it might affect my decision making or, you know. Or just to think about you that way.

Yeah. Right. It's not comfortable. Maybe for future, like, generations, it's going to be much more comfortable to talk about it. Well, undoubtedly, as more women are sitting around the conference table. I mean, you know, I have observed colleagues bursting into a sweat. And because I've been there, I knew exactly what it was. I'll go open the door or something. This only happened once or twice, just to let in some air.

Because a hot flash, it really feels like someone has set fire to your chair. Oh, boy. Oh, yeah, you've got a lot to look forward to. And then you're drenched in sweat. And you're purple. Yeah. It is uncomfortable to talk about now, but I think it hopefully is becoming more common. I'm so glad we're going a language for talking about it even if it's seeking support from each other um that makes that less scary you know what just having a little just a sympathetic look yes makes a big difference yeah just just knowing that someone else feels your heat. Right.

Literally in metaphors. Because that's how it really shows up. I mean, the stuff where your brain gets super foggy, I don't remember that so much. I remember the brain not slowing down stuff where it just was like a cacophony in my brain. And I don't think I even knew how to talk about that yeah right i feel totally unprepared and i remember even saying to my doctor i was like can you just tell me what to expect and she had a hard time answering well because it's really it's idiosyncratic

yeah i also i remember the part where i got, you know, everything hit me hard. You become super sensitive, really thin skinned. And that you need to be aware of, particularly if you manage people. Because you cannot yell at people because your hormones are en fuego, right? Or you can't overreact to every little thing. Yeah. And that part can be very real. And yet there's men and women show up to work not our best selves for a variety of different reasons.

In some ways, we both have to realize why we might be behaving the way we are. Self-awareness is important and yet normalize the fact that you know you might feel like your brain is is on speed because of menopause and the guy down the hall may not have slept for the past three weeks right so and and so you know there's there's lots of reasons we don't show up at our finest. Well, you don't have to explain it either. Exactly. You can say, I'm not at my best today, forgive me. Yep.

And I think that's okay. Yeah. The other thing you can do, just some advice from someone who's been there, is if you feel like you just can't handle the upcoming meeting, you know, you just feel like your brain isn't working or you're you cannot get control of yourself in some way see if you can move the meeting save everyone yeah yeah yeah yeah i had a i had a hunch about what it was like i mean partly talking with you amy b about what it was like to grow older at work and yet I feel like it's not something I've spent a lot of mental space thinking about and we're all headed there it's worth spending time thinking about whether you're 55 45 25 you know how do you want to navigate this part of your

career yeah I think that's right and maybe getting a little bit of perspective on how to approach that and not just suddenly counting down, well, when I'm this age, I might as well just throw in the towel or something. But like knowing that there are a lot of reasons why being someone who is older in the workforce, there are a lot of benefits to that. There are a lot of ways that you can be a high performer in that time in your life, but you'll have to put some work in to do it. Yeah, and you have to constantly ask yourself

if you're framing the context. Yeah, right. Right. Because your perspective changes, and if you're aiming for exactly the same set of goals you had when you were 25, you might be disappointing yourself. Yeah. And it just gives me hope that you is just try to stay fit. I cannot tell you how important it is, not just for your physical well-being, but for your mental well-being. Hit the gym, do yoga, whatever it is.

It's yoga time. It's yoga time. Oh, my God. 4.30. Amy B. does yoga, gets up at 4.30 to do yoga. And my partner says, it's yoga time. Is she that chipper? Yeah, she is. Sorry.

But she still gets up. I know, I know. She does. That's impressive. We're sweating at 6, my friend. That's right. Yeah. That's our show. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Amy Gallo. Nicole will be back with us next week. Our editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoke, Adam Buchholz, Rob Eckert, Mary Du, Erica Truxler, and Corey Brosnahan.