Women at Work - Meet Our New Co-Host!

Episode Date: March 6, 2019

Amy Gallo is a contributing editor for HBR, an expert on conflict and difficult conversations, a prolific giver of advice — and now she takes up the baton of co-hosting the show from Sarah Green Carmichael. 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. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Nicole Torres. I'm Amy Bernstein. And I'm Sarah Green Carmichael. We have some news about the future of the show that we want to share with you. I am going to be passing the baton of co-hosting this show to my wonderful colleague, Amy Gallo, who's here with us in the studio. Hi, everyone. And thanks, Sarah. I am really excited to be part of the show in this new way. Welcome, Amy. Welcome aboard, Amy G.

Thank you. So many Amy's. So many Amy's. I'm super excited. I can't think of anyone I'd rather have take my chair. Oh, thanks, Sarah. I'm actually nervous. I want to make you all proud. Well, you undoubtedly will make us proud. But before we talk more about that, let me just say, Sarah, I am so sorry to lose you from this experience.

It's been such a pleasure co-hosting this with you. And I wish you all the best. Thanks. Thanks, Amy. It's going to be something that I miss tremendously, but I will really enjoy listening to all of you. And probably we'll talk back to the podcast on my car stereo or something and wish that I could chime in. But I'll just email you those thoughts. I hope you do.

So, Sarah, tell us all what you're up to now. So I've taken a job at Barron's to be their ideas editor. So editing articles on ideas and new research and exciting things in the world of finance and investing primarily in the broader world of business. And we're going to be launching some new podcasts. That's exciting. Yeah. So one thing that's important when a valuable employee leaves, as Sarah is doing, is to think about how they can pass on their experience to their colleagues. We published an article about the right way to off-board an employee. And we had some advice from Professor Emerita at HBS, at

Harvard Business School, Dorothy Leonard. And she said, the most effective knowledge transfer involves conversation. So I'm hoping we can do a little bit of that today. And I have a few questions for you, Sarah, if you're open to hearing them. Fire away. As I sort of get my feet wet here. So first, what's one thing you learned in your time as a co-host on this show that you feel is most important for me to know? Something that I really came to enjoy and rely on was the strong sense of trust that exists in this studio. And so you can say things. You can try things out. You can decide later that you didn't say it in quite the right way or that's not a part of your history that you want to share. And I think Amy and Nicole will keep it confidential and Amanda, our wonderful producer, will save you from yourself by editing around it and making it sound seamless. So I think that to me, one of the reasons the show works so well and why the

relationships here have become so strong is it's just we really can say anything to each other. And yeah, so I think it's OK to take risks or try something and just know that there's a lot of support here to catch you if you need it. I'm looking forward to that part. That sounds great. Okay. So what's something you'll miss about this role? I'll really miss actually being here and making the show and being in a studio. I'll miss working on choosing the topics with all of you. I'll miss brainstorming the best experts we can get in. I mean, this is a subject matter that I care so deeply about. And it'll be hard to say goodbye to this show and these listeners and all of you and the topic. But obviously I'll be listening. So what's something you won't miss?

It is true that I will not miss sort of tying myself in knots while trying to both be candid and share a story and also not overshare and also not get anyone else into trouble. So I know some of the stories we've talked about, and this especially came up when we were talking about sort of being a lady breadwinner, it was like suddenly really difficult because we're also talking about our partners. So sometimes you start telling a story and halfway through you realize, I'm about to maybe make someone more identifiable than they would like. And so I will not miss having to kind of walk that line. I'm nervous about that, too. And I tend to think of myself as an open book.

But there are things we all want to keep private. And I think it's hard to figure out both in work and in the studio and in public how we can be the people we are in a way that's genuine, but also retain that privacy. Well, and especially for you, Amy Gallo, where I know that you are like the office confidant in some ways, because you are an expert on things like conflict and difficult conversations and I know that there have been times when I have come to you and confided in you and so I think what I have found challenging is telling some of the stories that I am a part of without violating anyone else's confidence right and as a keeper of many confidences that is something that you will have to wrestle with. Yeah. I have a friend who, right? I have a friend who's going to immediately recognize herself in this story and be really mad that I'm telling it.

Welcome to our podcast. All right. What do you hope we will keep having both really interesting conversations about these issues and also just talking to some really interesting researchers who can kind of not only share their own experience, but tell us like what's really going on here. I will be so excited for all of that. And I want the unedited versions. Send me the rough cuts. Send me the rough cuts. Okay. So now let's talk more about our exciting new co-host me the rough cuts. Okay.

So now let's talk more about our exciting new co-host, Amy Gallo. Yes. Yes. So as sad as we are that Sarah is leaving the show, we are very happy, Amy Gallo, that you are going to be joining us. As we said earlier, you are our in-house expert on difficult conversations and conflict. You wrote the book on this. You wrote the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict. So I think you're going to bring a lot of amazing perspective to the show, as you do when you come into work already. You are our office therapist and a giver of great advice, as Sarah said. I know that from personal experience. And you bring a lot

of great perspective as someone who manages work as a mom and who runs her own business. So I'm very excited to hear everything you're going to bring to the show. I'm excited to bring that perspective, especially as a mom, as a freelancer, someone who runs my own business, because as I've been listening to the first two seasons, sometimes I haven't heard those perspectives. And I'm excited to bring those because I know a lot of our listeners share those perspectives and other perspectives we're not yet representing either. I hope I bring a different voice. I hope I do Sarah's legacy some justice, but I hope I bring a new perspective as well. And you also, you know, you just have all the right qualities, Amy. You're, you know, you're wise, you're empathetic.

You obviously give great advice. I'm going to start coming to you. But you're also, you know, you're super smart. You're really open-minded. And I love that you are the opposite of arrogant, whatever that word is. Well, thank you both. I feel like I had a celebrity crush on this podcast and then I got to date it. I mean, this is such an honor. It really is., you know, that feeling when colleagues you love and respect make something you're so proud of. And now I get to be part of it.

Now you'll get infinitely retweeted. So when should I be refreshing my podcast feed and hopefully seeing the little blue W pop up? In April, we will put out an announcement to let everyone know when to look out for us. Sarah, thanks so much for coming back. And it's been so good to see you again here in your place behind your microphone in the studio. I'm sad to say goodbye to you again, but I'm so happy you're here with us, Amy G. Thank you. We're going to miss you, Sarah.

I'll miss you guys, too. The Amys and Nicole. Nicole and the Amys. Nicole and the Amys. That's our news. I'm Nicole Torres. I'm Amy Bernstein. And I'm your new co-host, Amy Gallo.

Our producer is Amanda Kersey. Our audio product manager is Adam Buchholz. Maureen Hoke is our supervising editor. And we get production help from Rob Eckhart. We'll be putting together season three over the next couple of months. While you're waiting for new episodes to come out, you can keep up with us and with HBR's latest articles on gender through the Women at Work monthly newsletter.

Subscribe at hbr.org slash newsletters. Bye for now. See you soon. Goodbye.