Women at Work - Season 8 Highlights — and a Host Reunion!

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

Former co-hosts Sarah, Nicole, and Emily reunite with the Amys to talk through the insights and advice that most resonated with them from this season, from how they gained their team’s trust as a first-time manager to how they’re now thinking about retirement. They also share how they’ve been doing since they left the show and HBR.

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. I have a lot of close friends who are my age and, you know, in their 30s, and they're always asking me how I found mentors and who do I turn to for advice? And how did I learn some of the stuff that I apply in my work? And I always point to the show, and I just wish it's like an experience that everyone could have, that they could have hosted with Emily and the Amys and Sarah. Yeah, every episode is like a little bit of mentorship. Yeah. I'm just grateful that this experience brought all of us together.

Yeah, I can't believe it's been this long since we decided to have a host reunion episode. Yeah. It is funny because actually, I do listen to the episodes that you guys have been producing post my departure. And it's sort of like spying on friends. I'm like, what are the Amy's up to today? But of course, it's very one sided. So I haven't actually gotten a chance to like hear directly from you or, you know, ask you questions or whatever. But I enjoy getting the updates and hearing all the questions you guys ask the experts you have on. And I loved the last season you guys put out that we're going to be talking about today. I'm really excited to

talk about it. Yeah, you know, it is rare, I think, to have the work experience, to have a safe space to talk about these things with people who are at different points in their life and points in their career. And it's funny that we do it with a microphone in front of our face because you would think that would put us on edge, but this is one of the safest spaces I've had. Well, no one's listening, right? Yeah. This is one of the safest spaces. Well, no one's listening, right?

You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Nicole Torres. I'm Emily Caulfield. I'm Sarah Green Carmichael. And I'm Amy Gallo. And we're winding down season eight with a host reunion. Sarah, Emily, and Nicole are here to reflect on the issues we've covered this season and to tell us how they've been doing. All right, let's start with life updates.

Emily, what's new with you? Well, I'm trying to learn how to be a business owner. Sometimes feeling successful, sometimes failing. But I've been doing, since I left HBR, I've been doing vintage markets once or twice a week and getting by that way. Not saving a lot of money, but it's been fun. It's been like a totally different world. So, yeah, I'm enjoying it, but also struggling through it and trying to figure out how to do this well. That's awesome because our goodbye episode, you were like, I don't know how long I'll be able to do this. It's been six months. So at least six months. Let's see. Let's see what happens. Yeah. Nicole, what's going on with you?

Well, since leaving HBR, I have been focused on building a life in London. So I've been here a little over two years and I recently became deputy editor of my team, Bloomberg Opinion Europe. So that has kept me pretty busy. Work has been very full on. Congrats on the promo. That's huge. I called it a little promo-mo. Yes. That also means we've gone from me being Nicole's boss when she was at HBR to now her being higher on me on the Mastead. I was going to say superior to me, but she was always superior

to me. So now she's also higher on the mass 10, which is what she deserves. Yes, I have changed jobs twice since leaving HBR. And last time I was on this podcast, I was briefly at Barron's where I was the ideas editor. And then I've now been at Bloomberg Opinion for about three years. And I had a baby during the pandemic. So that's also been a big life change. Minor, minor update. I know, just a minor update. Two job changes and a baby. So, Sarah, was there any episode in particular that caught your attention? I mean, many. I think given my life stage, the supportive spouse one really hit me in a different way than the last time we dealt with

that topic. So last time we talked about that with Jen Petriglieri, I did not have a child. And now I do. And that, of course, changes a lot. So there was so much in that episode that I actually like was taking notes on my phone. But I think one thing that really struck me was how much these arguments feel like an interpersonal argument, but they are in fact shaped by so much around us. She specifically had talked about, I think, the challenge of nursing early on and that establishing a pattern in the relationship where because she was the one physically feeding the child, there was sort of less for her husband to do and how that might sort of set them

off on an unbalanced course, you know, from the very beginning. And I have heard that from so many other women and they're just following the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics. But actually, in my own situation, I'm sort of grateful that breastfeeding really just bombed and just did not work out. And at the time that was really upsetting to me. But now I'm like, actually, by switching to formula really early, my husband was able to be involved in a way that he just, I think, would not have been had my grand plans worked out. So I don't know. There was so much there to dig into. But really, the thing that struck me was like, we are just shaped by things like how long our parental leave is versus our partners, the American Academy of Pediatrics, like so many external and societal forces

beyond just the relationship. And then the relationship has to carry all the weight of all of that external stuff. That's such a good way to put it. And I think we were sort of hinting around that with Becky, just that the expectations of society, family, our employers, our colleagues, like how the relationship is just burdened by that. And then it's putting so much pressure on these two people to navigate all of these biased systems. And one thing that hit me in the course of that conversation was how marriage is this constant negotiation, right?

And I wonder if you found that as well, Sarah. Yes. I think that what has really helped us during this phase of life is to focus on what we need from each other and not so much on what's fair. Because anytime you're in a fairness conversation, it's now kind of a tug of war, like a zero-sum game almost. But if you're just saying, look, what I really need from you tonight is you put the baby to bed and I just put my feet up because I'm just done. Or what I really need from you this week is to you take care of the baby all by yourself so I can go speak at a conference.

That's something I just did. My husband had our daughter for nine days by himself. And it's also by focusing on needs, not fairness. I think, you know, I don't know if I could be a solo parent with as much aplomb as my husband just did for nine days. Like I've done it like he got COVID and I had to be like super mom for 11 days. And it was awful. And so I actually think sometimes we can ask things of our partner that we cannot quite give back to them. So that's why I feel like making that shift to focus on needs and not sort of 50-50 what's 100% fair has really helped us. It's never 50-50, right? It's never. No.

It's always 90-10. In one way or the other, right? Day to day. And day to day day it might you know change or hour to hour so right yeah one thing that stuck out to me was how or something that i found that makes so much sense and is very obvious but just hearing it was really reassuring you have to have these big picture conversations important conversations with your partner about values and priorities regularly, or if not regularly, at least periodically, because values and priorities change when you get promoted, when you get a different job, when you have a baby. So like as life changes, things in your

own relationship will change. And like I am partnered. And so we've had a few conversations about big life goals and values and how we want our independent lives to go alongside each other and merge. And it's helpful to know that those won't be the last conversations we have. We will have to keep having them as things change. So Nicole, was there a particular episode that caught your attention? Like Sarah, I have notes on each one, but I guess the one that is most relevant to my life currently was the ups and downs of first-time managers. It's something I've been thinking about because my work has gotten a bit more managerial in nature. So the thing I really took away was that you don't need to have all the answers. In fact, you shouldn't go into a team trying to show that you have all the answers. You just need to be asking questions and trying to figure out what you don't know and trying to show up and learn from people around you. So that's something that I've been trying to do in my role. But I think what also helped in, you know, building trust with my team

and winning their respect was not just focusing on learning, but also showing that I was hearing what they were saying and try to incorporate that into my work. So one thing I found useful is to ask my writers what they think makes a great editor. And they will all give me very different responses, you know, from like, just email me back when I send you a pitch or, you know, be decisive, things like that, but all kind of generally different for each person. And then when working with them each time after, I will like make a point to demonstrate that I did hear them. Like I'll get back to them faster or I'll try to be more decisive. I love that.

So that was something that I thought about while listening. So simple. And any manager could do that. What do you think makes a great boss? Yeah, exactly. And honestly, just listening to that episode, Amy B had an answer for everything. Like you had an answer for everything. For everything.

Yes. Every scenario that came up, you had just like such a good response. Like I know you do your job as like an editor and all the other jobs that you do. But being a manager is like a totally different skill set. And you have those skills and you knew exactly how to respond to everything they could bring up. Well, it helps to have made every mistake in the book. So. I guess that's how you learn. But. Yeah. It was awesome. Well, it helps to have made every mistake in the book. I guess that's how you learn, but it was awesome. Well, thank you. That's reassuring that you can

learn that skill. Yes. And I agree that it's a skill. I think we often treat it as like, especially in first-time managers, I think they step in and think, well, why don't I know all this? Who's born a manager? I mean, what child says, golly, I hope I grow up to be an editor and a manager? You know? That's right. I found myself in that episode really remembering the research you mentioned by Daniela Loop that said that women tend to not experience greater job satisfaction when they become a manager, but men do. And you talked about some possible reasons why that might be the case. And I wondered how much it has to do with role conflict.

Because like when I was a first time manager, I really felt that it was sort of was like I've been raised to be likable. Exactly. To be a pleaser, to do what people ask of me. And now I'm in this role. I'm like sort of also trying to be an authority and like boss people around and not please them. And that was just so much internal conflict that it was challenging. Yeah. I think one of the hardest things for me, though, and I'm curious how you all have dealt with this in experiences managing. So for me,

and some of the women in the episode brought it up, they really had a hard time with delegating or relinquishing control, which I think is a big issue when you go from being an individual contributor to then like being in charge of people. And I do struggle with that. Like something I found is in the past, I would always kind of reach for or try to take up the coolest, most exciting projects. But now, like I still want to do that. But part of the job also, it seems like I have to make sure other people are getting to do that work. And I have a really hard time letting go. And I don't know if I'm doing a bad job. But I feel like that's something that a good manager does is they step back and let other people have opportunities. But that is a learnable thing. Well, a lot of this learning is learning to give up some stuff, you know, and it's learning to, it's learning what really matters. And when you become a manager, part of your job is helping other people to shine. And you get marked on that. And it's also where

you should find joy, right? I'm just going to make a plug here for, we have done an Essentials episode last spring on delegation. So you can all listen to it right after this if you'd like. But for me, it was the hardest thing. It took me years to learn to do that. What about you, Sarah? Yeah, I think for me, partly what was helpful was reframing it from like, I'm dumping this work I don't have time for on someone else to I'm actually giving up the parts of the job. But in some ways I enjoy the most so that other people have an opportunity to do them and to learn them.

And I think what then became hard was like, how do I right size the delegation to the person's skill level so that I'm not just saying, OK, sink or swim, have fun. This is a great project. I wish I were doing it. But then it's sort of like yeah you sort of have to customize that to the person you're delegating to this weekend I'm actually so I want to do as many markets as possible because I have to make money so this weekend on Saturday there's a market I wanted to do it but I can't because I have to be somewhere else and I physically need to be in the place to sell the clothes. So I'm going to hire somebody. And this will be my first time having somebody work on their own. And I'm so scared. I'm so scared because I do like that part of the job where I get to like

interact with customers and help people style things and try things on. And this person seems great. I think she's going to do a great job. I'm still worried about it. But I think the benefit of this is it's like kicking me into gear to be like, I have to make sure that I'm setting her up for success. It's not like it's not the same as having like a full blown career or like a full time job. It's hugely important to your business. Yeah. Yeah. There's like something about this little opportunity that I'm like, oh, this makes me feel like. But it's a huge opportunity because it helps you scale. Yes. I have no business scaling at this point. Well, maybe you're not the best judge of that. But you do because you have somewhere else to be. Like, yeah. Yeah. Like, that's the reality. I think the market's telling you, you need to scale. Exactly. OneCloud 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 Madhupe on how to apply these lessons in your own life. Listen to TED Business wherever you get your podcasts. that made us most uncomfortable. Oh, I think I spent a full week getting over that episode. I have to say, it was so funny to me to like, I'm not sure funny, ha ha, funny, weird,

or just, I don't know. But it was so remarkable to me to listen to you guys sort of painfully talk about retirement that is clearly something you, meanwhile, I'm over here like dreaming of my retirement and building castles in the sky.

Oh yeah, easy to say when it's decades away. Well, yeah, I mean over here like dreaming of my retirement and building castles in the sky. Oh, yeah. Easy to say when it's decades away. Well, yeah. I mean, fair point. Yeah. I was like, it's way too soon for me to be so excited about retirement. Right. But anyway, I love that episode.

Did you pick up any tips? Yes. The three questions that came up of what do you want, why do you want it, and how are you going to get it? I felt like that was super helpful whatever life stage you're at or career stage. Yeah. Funny enough, retirement has been like a fairly common topic since I've moved to London. And it's not one that just like my friends' parents are talking about and colleagues are talking about. It's something that like my friends and my peers have been talking about too. And I never thought I would get to retire. Like it's just not something I've ever thought

I would ever be able to financially achieve or like I wouldn't have enough in my life to be able to fill the time that I spend working. But since moving abroad, like it is something that I think about now. And I don't know if that's because it's just like more built in in the UK. I know it is in Europe, but there are just systems and it's sort of expected that you will get to retire at a decent point in your life and have a nice life that does not revolve around your job. So that's been a big change for me around retirement. And then hearing this, I was like, oh, now I can actually start thinking about it practically. Yeah. I think there's probably less of a hustle culture too, which like the, I'll never retire as sort of a, you know, badge of honor.

It does seem like in another culture that sort of, I'll never retire might seem pathological, not admirable. Yes. It's a weird machismo, actually. It's like busyness, you know? Well, you know, what scares me is having it foist upon me rather than choosing it. I mean, I spent days after that number, but thanks for putting. Sorry. But yeah, she just pulled that stat out of nowhere. I know. That's the Sarah Green karma we all love. Well,

it has to do with a lot of your financial situation too. Cause like you might have a plan to retire at 70 or 75 and then suddenly you have a health issue at 68. Yeah. So it's a huge problem. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just wanting to maintain my a huge problem. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just wanting to maintain

my sovereignty over myself. And that becomes, you know, when you're in your 30s or your 40s, it's salient, but it's very real for me in my early 60s. And I've seen it happen to a lot of people. It's happened to my friends who were suddenly retiring when I knew that was not in their plans. So maintaining the control over my future is important. Yeah. The word that I don't think it came up in the episode, but like your integrity. Like I think we want to make all of our career decisions with maintaining our integrity, right? Which is an element of control, but is also about, am I doing this in the way that I want to do it and that aligns with my values?

I mean, I think that's ultimately what Anne's three questions were about. It's like, can I do this in a way that I feel good about? And that's not as strongly influenced by outside forces. And we need to recognize that even the ability to ask yourself those questions is a privilege. Yes, that's right. I think of the five of us, I'm currently the most retired of all of us. Like, I feel like I'm... You think being an entrepreneur is retirement?

I'm not the best entrepreneur. I could be working 40 hours a week on this business, and I'm kind of like, how do I spend my time? And listening to this episode, the two women that you spoke to, Audrey and Donna, they had their shit together like so well. They both had a plan before they retired. Donna looked at a clock that she like down to the minute she planned her life out. They both had several things that they were doing. Donna, she said that she was six months out from leaving her job. And I was like, oh my God, that resonates with me so much. I'm six months out from leaving my full-time job.

And she's like, I'm in the best shape ever and this and that. And I want to get to that point too. And I'm thinking like, oh, I should have left this job with more of a plan of how I'm going to spend my days so when I retire for real I will do that and right now that I'm at the six month mark I'm feeling like I need to have more structure around it yeah um I took up a part-time job at a yoga studio because I'm like I need to fill my time more I have to feel more productive I have to do more and I also wanted a free membership so I could exercise because I need to do that. But that's smart. That's smart. Yeah.

But financially in a bad position. But I'm glad you pointed that out about Donna and Audrey because I think most people probably don't go in. And Audrey didn't have as much of a plan as Donna because she didn't have the external support that Donna had brought in. But I do think most people go into retirement a little bit like, well, let's see how this goes. Yeah. of a plan as Donna because she didn't have the external support that Donna had brought in. But I do think most people go into retirement a little bit like, well, let's see how this goes. Yeah. And I think they all, both Donna and Audrey and Anne, all made a very strong argument for being more planful about it. And a lot of people un-retire. Like retirement contains so much. You know, my parents are partly retired, but they are busier than ever somehow.

So it's easy to fill up that time if you're the kind of person who is like engaged and interested and just fills your day with stuff. Yeah. Yeah. My mom said she was going to read books for two years after retirement and then she'll figure out. But like within six months, she's on like the housing board in her town and helping to advocate for affordable housing. And you're like, oh, OK, I see how this is going to go. When I sort of see what actual retirement is like, it actually looks very busy. Right. I don't think retirement is being idle. I think retirement is a change in your direction.

And just living all kinds of lives. Yeah. Retirement, colon, living all kinds of lives. Yeah. Retirement colon, living all kinds of lives. Yes. Absolutely. Here, here, I'm ready. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. What I would love to see from corporate America on that front is like making part-time work more viable for more people. Because I think there's demand at all phases of life, but I think I especially see it in some colleagues who are approaching retirement, and they just don't want to put in 40 or 50 hours a week. I had some colleagues I worked with at Bloomberg who actually alternated months. So one of them would work September, and then the next one would come in and take over that same set of tasks for October, you know, and then they would flip back.

And for them, for a long time, for years, it seemed to work really, really well. And I think that, you know, whether it's something like that or whether it's working 20 hours a week, I just don't think that most companies are set up to accept that. But there's such a huge market out there of skilled people who would really like to work that way. And there is a market of those people and their skills and experience are invaluable, Right. And we have a labor shortage if you have a labor shortage. Right. Yeah. This seems like a good time to segue into one of the other episodes that really caught my attention, which was the most recent one on leading organizational episode. Because before you had Georgia, you fought the good fight for parental leave here. And I think that might be one of the reasons you left. Yeah. Were you pregnant at the time?

I was not. No, I was displeased and frankly embarrassed by our parental leave policy at the time. HBR had one week of paid parental leave for all new parents. And then if you were the birth parent, you could take seven additional weeks of short-term disability. And then the seven weeks were partially paid if you were an employee for fewer than seven years and fully paid if you had been an employee for more than seven years, which was under a Harvard University policy. And actually, universities universally have terrible, it turns out, parental leave policies,

including, you know, a lot of the other universities in the Boston area. I thought, well, I'll build a case for this by looking at those and they'll have better policies and we'll be they'll be shamed into changing the Harvard policy. And it was like, nope, actually, they're all really bad. So anyway, I was not pleased by that. I didn't think it was enough time. And I just thought, like, we need to change this. And I thought at the time, to the extent that I have any political capital at this organization from the work I've put in for the last 11 plus years, I'm going to cash in every chip on this fight. And I think listening to that episode, I felt like there were definitely some things I could have done better in pushing for change.

Like what? Well, like Amy G, like you talk about how you're a spreadsheet person, guilty, also a spreadsheet person. And I'm like, behold, my beautiful spreadsheet. Yeah. And just change. Because what I did end up doing was I ended up finding other media organizations. And we were behind if you looked at other media organizations in terms of our leave offering. And I sort of thought that the data would just speak for itself. I'm not sure I did enough to build a sort of coalition at the senior levels. I could have done more sort of, I think, to build a coalition among

other employees. But I also didn't want to like start a petition because I was like, I don't want to be seen as a rabble rouser. And I don't want to ask other people to stick their neck out. I might have failed and been seen as a rabble rouser anyway. I don't know. But I think that I could have definitely approached that more skillfully. In the end, the policy did change and it is a better policy now. But that point about being seen as a rabble-razzer, I don't think we covered that enough in the episode, which is that you're expending social capital, but you are also changing your reputation, either for positive or negative, while you're pushing for that change. And you have to be aware of that. And also why you build a broader coalition. So you're not the only one carrying that reputational cost if there is a cost as opposed to a boost. I also felt a little bit at the time like, I can take this hit. I'm not going to ask other women who might not have as much political capital to spend it on this. Oh, that's interesting.

I will take this hit if it's a hit. One thing that I always wanted to tackle in all my full-time jobs was pay transparency. Yeah. I wanted to talk about my pay with my co-workers and I wanted my co-workers to talk about pay with me. And I never knew how to do that, but like I had this idea. I was like, I kind of want to add my salary to my email signature. Wow. And I want everybody else to do it too. But of course that opens up a big can of worms, but pay transparency was always one of those things that I'm like, why are we so secretive in all of the jobs that I've ever been in? Why are we so secretive about how much money we make? But I realized that not everybody feels that way. Yeah. I think each of us are probably more comfortable on some issues than others.

Like, I will carry the flag anytime for parental leave. And then you start talking about money, I'm like, money's awkward. Yeah. I know, money is so awkward for all of us to talk about. I feel like I see the Women at Work, like, newsletter. It's called How I Got That Raise. Yeah. And oh my God, like, the numbers are right there.

And I'm like, damn, these ladies are making a lot of money. Yep. 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 womenatwork. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at

work. We can't not talk about the body size episode. Oh, man. The stats in the opening about the pay gap between quote-unquote normal-sized women versus women who live in larger bodies. It was so eye-opening to me and so depressing that this stigma is so deep. I will never look at office cake the same way. Just some of those examples of like the comments that you hear in meetings when there is, you know, an office snack or some celebration, like there's cake and people are aware of who reaches for the cake and who doesn't. That act can signal so many things and make people go into these shame spirals. Hearing that story

kind of stunned me because we're in situations like that pretty constantly. Like there's always food around. There's always talk about office lunches and snacks and exercising. And there's always like this little valence of, you know, morality attached to that. Yeah. Emily and I just had this moment just now where I brought cookies. I'm like, do you want a cookie? She's like, no. I'm like, are you sure? And she's like, I think this should be in body size. This is very relevant to the body size episode. I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. Like, and you just don't even realize. No, but I do want a cookie. I just need to have it after we're done here. I mean, and the comfort we have on commenting on other people's bodies, particularly women's, and their eating habits.

Yes. It's so intense. I think before I listened to that episode, I would have said, like, no, of of course, like I don't have any weight bias or body size bias. But then when Habiba was talking about going through the self-assessment and coming back that she was biased in this way or exhibited some implicit bias, I thought like, yeah, I do too. The way I talk to myself when I'm a few pounds heavier or a few pounds lighter, like'm not as nice to myself when I've gained a few pounds. And I'm so congratulatory if I've lost weight, even if it was through not doing anything of my own, through not exercising.

Or just being sick. Yeah. I mean, that's the sickest thing to me, is the way we congratulate ourselves for losing weight because we were sick. Oh, my God. So I recently came through a very stressful period and I dropped like 12 pounds. And who was in her closet trying on the clothes

from the back of the rod and feeling pretty proud of herself. Thank God all those horrible things happened in my life. I mean, I mean, at least there's this, right? I know. Yeah. Oh, it's just so upsetting. Yeah. I feel like this is something that I've wrestled with a lot in the past couple of years, both because when I was trying to get pregnant, I ended up going on a crazy diet to help.

Anyway, whatever. I went on a crazy diet where I cut out a lot of toxic foods, quote unquote, lost 12 pounds and then got pregnant and then gained 45 pounds. And then that took a long time to come off. So my weight has been all over the place. And yes, the voices in your head that are talking to you are not your voice, but there are some voice that you learned, you know, along the way. And now I have a daughter. And of course, I'm like, well, I don't want her to hear this toxic language from me. So even if some of those voices still talk to me, I'm sort of like, what can I exhibit in front of my child so that she maybe grows up with less of this? Because I don't think in our society we can totally block her out. No, you can't. But there's, you know,

the whole body positivity movement, I think, has been huge. Body neutrality is something that has been helpful for me. Like, I have just, like, if body positivity is for me a bridge too far right now, we can just be neutral. These are my legs. There they are. You know, and that's been something that's just been helpful for me in terms of, like, I don't have to love them. They're just there. They get me where I need to go. Self-acceptance all the way around.

It's helped me, too. It's just, you know, there are certain things that just aren't going to change. Apparently my legs are never going to be long and lean. That's okay. Yeah. But one other thing that I liked about the bodies episode too, is the importance of having, basically just generating more awareness about this, because we can have all the self-acceptance, you know, in the world, but that will be hard to achieve and hard to maintain if you go into workplaces and people are still weirdly judging you and making comments about bodies. So there were some interventions in the episode that

I thought were really good. One just stood out to me where when you're reaching for that piece of cake, just like cheers and like nothing, no comments on what that food means or what eating it symbolizes, because it shouldn't symbolize anything. And I think more like tiny little gestures like that can go a long way. Like neutralizing should be a communal goal, not just something like we individually are seeking to do when it comes to accepting our bodies. So as you all might remember, just as soon as the season closes, you start thinking about the next one. So we're already planning for our next season and have a few topics. We're thinking about particularly how divorce affects women at work, whether or not you need a personal brand. What does that mean, how do you build it.

And I'm curious from Emily, Sarah, and Nicole, what you would like to hear us talk about. Sarah? I have been writing a list. Oh, good. Send me one. Did she say she likes spreadsheet? Just type it up in the email address. Type it up.

So you guys have talked about health issues on the show before, and you actually had a great episode this season about working while having a child who's going through mental health issues. I just feel like I'm in a phase of life where more and more friends are either having health issues themselves. A friend of mine had breast cancer earlier this year, and that was really hard on her family. And then she's OK. She made it. But it was really hard. And then we have some other friends whose spouses have been diagnosed with devastating and very sudden forms of cancer. And like they were a two parent family, working family. And now they're just a single parent working family because their spouse was gone very quick. So to me, the health issues are very salient. And I would love to hear you guys talk more about managing that. In addition, I have two other topics. One is scheduling and rigidity and flexibility.

Like I think this is such a big issue for so many women, especially women who are not part of the quote unquote laptop class who can zoom in. It's like if you have to be at your job and you have no flexibility, like how does that work? Especially if you're like don't find out until Tuesday that you're working on Wednesday. Right. That's something I've been thinking a lot about. And then, you know, you mentioned personal brand. And I feel like we're living through such a time of social media transition now where like these platforms are sort of either plateauing or they're starting to disintegrate or they've been shown to create mental health problems in people who use them. And I feel like so much of a personal brand is being on social. Yeah. or they've been shown to create mental health problems in people who use them.

And I feel like so much of a personal brand is being on social. And so I am very curious to know if you guys have thoughts on kind of when you have to be on social media for your job, but you really don't want to be. It's not good for you. Right. How do you manage that? Nicole, what do you want us to cover? Well, as soon as you said personal branding, I thought of something very different. And that might just be like time in my life and what my closest friends are talking about, which is women change their names. And that affects your personal brand.

And how do you handle that decision? I'm like having a lot of these conversations now with friends who are getting wed and some are changing their names, some are not. And we always have very interesting discussions about why or why not and how that affects their professional lives. So that is also a big part of branding that women have to consider. Separately, selfishly, I'm also interested in hearing from other women who are, you know, thinking about children. Just the decision to become a parent when your life has been so structured on your work. Basically, how do you make that decision? If it's a decision that you make at all, I don't know. But that weighs on me.

And I could imagine you all would treat that subject very gracefully and insightfully. You guys, I really want to be back for some of these episodes. We might have to have you back. Emily? I would, of course, love to hear more about entrepreneurship. I want to know how women who have their own businesses are like planning out their days and their weeks and their months and their years and how they're making it work for them whether it's we've talked about this before I'm very extrinsically motivated and so having this one employee for one day is like so helpful for me but like anything like that so I'm I'm wondering how other women who are kind of doing it on their own are making it work because I could use that advice myself. I also really found that organizational change episode

very interesting. And I want to hear more examples of people doing that within their organizations. I want to hear how people did it, what they wanted to change, what steps they went through to do it. More of those very tangible examples will be so exciting. I think we've talked about how that episode could have been like four episodes. I do think a case study would be so helpful to others. Yeah. These are all such good episodes. It makes me miss being on a team with you all so regularly because these are wonderful ideas and I'm sure we're going to pick up on a few of them for next season. Emily, Sarah, Nicole, this has been a joy, truly. This was so fun.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. So good to see you. So good to have you guys back. As you know, at the end of every season of the show, we like to leave our listeners with some additional reading, listening, and a sense of when you'll be hearing from us again. So help me do that. Nicole, why don't you start? So I'm going to tell everyone to subscribe to the Women at Work newsletter, which Amanda Kersey, our producer, writes. It's twice a month, it's free, and you get resources, practical advice, personal stories to lift you up and move you forward. I think that's the tagline.

But beyond that, it's just like a really fantastic resource for what Women at Work is up to, what HBR is covering in terms of gender. I love it because I get little snippets into Amanda's life. I learn a lot from that newsletter every time and I look forward to it. So plug that for everyone else. That was such a nice little plug. Yeah. I highly recommend also the HBR Women at Work book series. There are three new books and they're being released on December 13th. They're available now for pre-order. Thriving in a Male-Dominated Workplace, Next Level Negotiating, and Taking Charge of Your Career. I'm really excited to read these.

Also, until we meet again, there is the archive of episodes. I will say some of them I have listened to before, but they sound really different when you are, for example, suddenly a working mom. All those working parenthood episodes suddenly just hit my ear differently when I'm on the other side of it. So depending on where you are in your career, it can be worth going back and taking a listen. Then on January 9th, we'll return with another four episodes of The Essentials, which is our skill building series. Each episode, we go deep on a particular skill, and we talk with a subject matter expert like a researcher and a woman working in a particular industry like, say, aerospace. And together, we talk through the principles and mechanics of whatever skill we're covering and how they apply on the ground, on the job, what they really look and sound like.

So right, actually, right before this recording, we had a meeting to discuss what topics we're going to cover in those episodes. And we're talking about skills like office politics, decision making, the very sexy topic of project management. Which I'll take. Yes. Amy was very excited about project management. I was very excited about that. And soliciting feedback, receiving feedback, being on the other end of that conversation.

Those are such good topics. I can't wait to listen. Thank you. podcast from Harvard Business Review. For starters, there's the HBR IdeaCast, which I used to host and hosted for about 10 years. It's a weekly interview show with leaders in business and management. I really miss hosting it. You interviewed me on that show. Yeah, it's still a good show. Even without me, you should still listen to it. I miss it. Finally, if you've ever wondered how to sustain women at work, subscribing to Harvard Business Review really is the best way. A subscription gets you unlimited online access to digital articles, editor-curated reading lists, the weekly insider newsletter, and charts you can use in presentations. The print and premium plans offer all those benefits and then some.

You can decide which plan is for you by going to hbr.org slash subscriptions. Thank you so much for your support. All right. We've got to say goodbye. As sad as it is. Bye. Bye, everyone. That was a sad bye.

It was a bye. Okay. Bye. Bye. This was so fun. Bye. Ta-ta. Philly. This was so much fun. I know. This was so fun. Bye. Ta-ta. Philly.

This was so much fun. This was fun. So fun. I miss you guys. We should reunite every single episode.