Women at Work - The Advice We Get and Give

Episode Date: March 8, 2018

Professional women get all kinds of advice — some of it helpful, some of it really unhelpful, and some of it nice-sounding but pretty impossible to use. We question some of the classic advice women get (and give) on asking for more money, achieving more by doing less, and not burning out. Guests: Ashleigh Shelby Rosette, Arianna Huffington, Tiffany Dufu, Susan Orlean, and Alison Beard. Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network. For links to the articles mentioned in this episode, as well as other information about the show, visit hbr.org/podcasts/women-at-work.

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. From Harvard Business Review, this is Women at Work. I'm Sarah Green Carmichael, Executive Editor. I'm Nicole Torres, Associate Editor. And I'm Amy Bernstein, Editor of HBR. For our season finale, we're talking about the advice women get about work. Like someone once told me, which was really useful, you know, Sarah, it's not your job to be liked. That's actually excellent advice. And we asked you to tell us the best and worst advice you've gotten. Here's what some of you said. The best advice so far has been to make sure that I maintain visibility of my work in front of others so that it's not lost out and all my hard work is seen. Don't

defend, ask questions because when you ask questions you take back control. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly and don't be afraid to make your own rules. So the worst advice I would say is somebody once told me that I should learn to talk about football or keep up with football so that I can connect with the men at my workplace. We were talking about our jobs, and I told him I was going through a bit of a rough patch at work. Out of the blue, this guy felt the need to suggest that I should quit my job and have some children because that would bring me more joy. When I'm asked to soften my message, it often sounds a lot like I'm coming off too harsh

or too cold or too aggressive. And that is the type of message that holds women back in the workplace. Thank you to all the women whose voices we just heard and to the many more women who emailed us with their best and worst workplace advice. We'll be touching on some of the themes that kept coming up, like how to be recognized and compensated for your accomplishments. Another one, perfection is stressful. Also, several of you wrote to us asking for advice. So later on in the show, I sit down with dear HBR co-host Alison Beard to answer a few of your questions. But you're right, if she decides to

move to another firm, she needs to make sure it's a firm where there's a culture of flexible work, not just for working moms, but for everyone. We'll also talk to Tiffany Dufu about achieving more by doing less. And I think it's less about dropping the things that are not as important as it is dropping the things that really don't reflect your highest and best views. We begin with Duke University management professor Ashley Shelby Rosette, who's an expert on negotiating. See, we know that women are less likely than men to ask for a higher salary. And it's for a good reason. The evidence suggests that women who ask

can suffer backlash that men don't. Ashley's here to explain the research and tell us how we can use it to our advantage. And now Amy starts us out. So what piece of advice do you find yourself giving women most about negotiation? Don't negotiate against yourself. And that simply means that oftentimes because we are so concerned about how we're going to be perceived. And we're so concerned about not getting what we want and offending people with our ask that we start discounting those things that we should actually find a value. And so, for example, we may say, oh, I don't have enough experience or they have more power than I do. So when they go in to negotiate they have actually done the opposing parties work for them and they're actually negotiating down their

value as opposed to negotiating up their value before they have even walked into the negotiation and so then you talk to them after the negotiation and you ask, how did it go? And they're providing reasons for why they conceded as opposed to reasons why they asked for more or pushed harder. So how do you get around that? Well, you actually need to do the opposite, right? Instead of, you know, thinking about all the reasons why you should not get that raise, you should think about all the reasons why you should get that raise, the value that you bring to that company, knowing what your metrics are during your recon. Oftentimes, it's hard to get stats on, you know, what other people are making at your company, but it's not as hard to get stats about what's happening in your industry, right? Also making sure that other people understand your value from your point of view.

I think frequently as women, we think that if we put our head down and get our work done, that somebody is going to recognize it and then they're going to reward us accordingly. That's not necessarily the case. People may not know all that it took to get the outcome that they see. They just see what was done and they say, great job. But they don't see that, you know, it took lots of late nights, lots of phone calls, lots of extra work that you may or may not, you know, have needed to do, but you chose to do because that's the value that you bring to the company.

Those types of things should be communicated at the negotiation table on your behalf. So making sure that people know your value, know your worth, and in addition, knowing what the metrics are around you to justify that aggressive offer that you're going to make, as opposed to that, you know, timid offer that you have talked yourself out of. That's helpful. What is the worst piece of advice you hear given to women about negotiation? The worst piece of advice, and I wouldn't say it's necessarily to women specifically, but there's definitely a gender component here. And that is not understanding the context in which you should or should not make the first offer in a negotiation when you've

done your homework when you are prepared and when you set aggressive goals you will tend to do better when you make the first offer but people tend not to want to make the first offer but what my research showed is that what we don't know is why okay so what we found showed is that what we don't know is why. Okay. So what we found in a paper that we published a couple of years ago is that people who make the first offer do better, but they are less satisfied with their economic outcome.

People who don't make the first offer do worse, but they're happier. Okay. People who don't make the first offer do worse, but they're happier. OK, then what we found further is that what actually explained this effect was the level of anxiety experienced when you make the first offer. You tend to be much more anxious because you perceive that the person is going to take advantage of you. We call this anxiety duped. Right? You think that you're losing control. But what really occurs is that you're actually providing information, you're anchoring in your favor, you're actually doing better at the negotiation table. Those people who are not making the first offer, they're actually being anchored by the other party's information. They make less opening offers, they perform less, but they're really, really happy about it because

that anxiety is not as high. Are there specific tactics that women can use that have been sort of shown by research to be more effective? Sure. So over the past several years now, we have a sufficient amount of negotiation research to start examining the patterns of behavior and what works, what doesn't work. And we do these in what we call meta-analyses. One specific one that was done by Jens Meise and her colleagues, and what they showed was that, yes, men tend to perform better than women do at the negotiation table when economic outcomes are considered across these studies, right? That's an effect that was demonstrated. However, they also showed when this effect was attenuated. The first one is that when women advocate on behalf of other people,

right, their performance goes up. If you think about this, this makes perfect sense. What you're doing is you're taking that communal nature that is innate to women with regards to, you know, the stereotypes that are prescribed and described to women, and you're actually using it to your advantage in that I'm not asking for me, I'm asking for someone else. So you're bringing in those relational qualities, using them to your advantage, and women do better at the negotiation table. A second way in which they found that these differences are attenuated is that when women have negotiation experience. So when they have negotiation experience, they are a bit more savvy, right? They know how this is going to go. They become more comfortable, perhaps with that dissonance, if you will, that will be

experienced in terms of, you know, how people might perceive me. Well, you know, now you know how people are going to perceive you. You become okay with that. You can manage those perceptions more easily. As a result of this, you now actually do better at the negotiation table. So those are just a couple, you know, that can help attenuate this type of concern about being perceived negatively at the negotiation table. And also when they are provided information

about the bargaining range. So basically, you know, you know that there is a range here. And so that gives you leeway or that gives you permission to kind of push the edges or the realms of that bargaining range that are going to be in your favor. So what about racial differences? So women of different groups, is there any research on how they negotiate, whether similarly or differently? There is not a lot of existing research on racial differences in general, let alone racial differences amongst women at the negotiation table. I will say, however, I am aware of several colleagues who are engaging in these projects. Now, we do know about the stereotypes that are prevalent amongst differing

subgroups of women. We know that there's likely going to be a distinction with regards to how people will react to them at the negotiation table. So for example, some of the work that I have done with a couple of my colleagues looks at the stereotypes of black women versus the stereotypes of white women. And we know, for example, that white women are expected to be communal. We also know that black women are stereotyped frequently to be dominant. We know that Asian women are stereotyped frequently to be competent. And we know that from my own research that these stereotypes can influence perceptions of leadership. So for example, in one study with my colleagues, we looked at women leaders

who behave in a dominant way versus a communal way. So we looked at black men, black women, white men, and white women. The most interesting aspect of it is where we did not find a difference. Now, we were not expecting to find a difference with regards to white men, the leader prototype. So they have behavioral freedom in the manner in which they enact their leadership strategies. For black women, however, we also did not find a difference in terms of when they behave dominantly versus when they behave communally. The idea here is that when you think about that stereotype of black women,

you know, that cliche of the angry black woman, now translate that anger into dominance and the behaviors that can be congruent with that expectation. A black woman leader who is behaving in a dominant manner is not at odds with the stereotypes that we would have of her. And so as a result, she is actually giving much more behavioral leeway. We call this idea, a lot of this research is based upon this idea of intersectional invisibility. And that is when you think black stereotype, you think black men. When you think woman stereotype, you think white

woman. Black women fall in neither of these categories. So as a result, they have a certain level of freedom with regards to assertive behavior. And so the research that I talked about that I know that is underway, they are mimicking this at the negotiation table and showing that this idea that when black women behave in an assertive way, it actually can yield economic benefits because of that expectation. That is so fascinating. I am super excited to see that research come out. Yeah, I think many of us are. So how might we translate this ongoing research into some practical negotiation advice for Black women? I think the thing is, and whether it's Black women, Asian women, Latinas, whatever your racial group, and just women in general.

And that is we have to fundamentally understand how we may be perceived at the negotiation table and manage those perceptions accordingly. And if you have a tendency and have been told that you are perceived as assertive, you may need to complement the perception. So for example, if you are perceived assertively and you don't want to be perceived assertively, still engage in your behavior, but label that and say, sometimes I know I can come off

as a bit abrasive. That's not my intention here. What I'm really trying to get at is this strategy, right? Similarly, if you tend to be perceived as very communal and positive and bubbly, but you want to be taken serious and you want to be essential, you need to acknowledge that, you know, like, you know, I get that this is how, you know, you may be perceiving me, but I want you to know that I'm serious about this and this is what I really want, right? So you have to kind of disentangle the behavior or the perceptions of the behavior from the

strategy in which you would like to implement. It actually sounded as if you were strengthening the demand. You know, it really gave it some extra oomph. Again, it's about knowing what your strengths are in terms of how you may be perceived and using those things to your advantage as opposed to not managing them and perhaps them working against you. Well, Ashley, thank you. This has been really, really fun. Awesome. I've enjoyed it. Thank you. I'm looking forward to reading more about your research. Absolutely. Thanks, Ashley. Take care. Bye-bye. So Ashley's three things that she said help women get to be better negotiators totally resonated with me. And that was the negotiating on behalf of others, having more experience, and when you know a little bit more about a much better negotiator because I felt like before I was just asking for stuff that I wanted and felt like I deserved. And now it was like, well,

I'm part of a team. And like, this isn't just money that affects my lifestyle. This affects my husband and his career and his choices. And I don't know, it totally changed how I think about asking for more. Yeah. You know, my older brother once, when I was negotiating, I say negotiating, when I got a job offer sort of early on, and it was for a really paltry amount of money, I was talking to him about it. And he was saying, well, you know, that's even a cut from your last crappy salary level. Go ask for more. And I said, no, what if they, you know, what's even a cut from your last crappy salary level. Go ask for more. And I said, no, what if they, you know, what if they withdraw the offer? And he said, no one ever lost a job offer for asking for more money. And that resonates to this day.

Although actually there have been a couple times that that has happened. I'm thinking of there were some young female academics who asked for more and the universities rescinded the offer. Wow. And then, of course, it went viral and there was a PR nightmare. I mean, yeah, that really that struck a warning chord for me. Yeah, that just shook me. Yeah. I've heard stories like that from multiple friends, like female friends who will get, you know, this job offer and not even think to negotiate because it's like pretty, it's pretty good. It's not like a,

an automatic response. Like we have to negotiate this thing, but then their boyfriends or their husbands will look at that offer and say, ask for like 10% more. And they're like, I can't do that. I wasn't making that much in my last job. And they're like, no one cares. Just ask. And they've got, they got the, you know, the higher offer. And they said that without, you know, that little push, they would not have done that and like had what they had today. Yeah. Well, and what I've realized is that, you know, you don't always have to come out with like a demand or a number. You can say if someone gives you the offer, oh, like and how flexible is that? And, you know, that would also,

the way they react to that will also give you some information. Well, the other thing you have to understand is how these negotiations sort of happen. It's often the person you're talking to isn't the one who's making the decision. So you have to, you have to give them the weapons that they can take into their next conversation with HR, whoever's making that call. So the other piece of advice that she gave that really resonated with me was don't negotiate against yourself. And I've realized there are lots of little ways in which I still do that. Just like simple things or family things or whatever. I will come up with what I want and then I'll think about what the other person wants. And then I will automatically come to a compromise. And then I will present that as the plan like my opening offer yes and no surprise like usually

they're using that as like a starting offer so well in general I find the whole thing of like anchoring and then making these like false sort of concessions that you plan to give up on anyway like kind of stupid like why does it have to work that way I've learned that actually it's not a terrible idea to like hold back something that you might be willing to just give in on anyway. Yeah, you don't have to mediate your own negotiation. That's how you undermine yourself. I want to go back to something you just said, Nicole, about negotiating a salary that when the job offer comes in, that's not the final offer. You have to remember that when you get a job offer, that's at the end of a very

long, kind of arduous process. So if you're the one they say they want to hire, you're in the catbird seat. And I think we forget that. We do. The thing that is heartbreaking about women not negotiating when they have a job offer is that that is often when you have the most leverage. You're not going to get into that role, show them how great you are, and then convince them that you need a huge raise most of the time, unless you have an outside offer or something to use as leverage. So it's like, really, when you have that job offer, that is your best chance to really meaningfully accelerate your salary. And it's not, I don't know how true this is, but there's a stereotype out there that for guys, it's all about the number, you know,

who's winning. It's like a sports game and it's about the score. For me, it's really about like, what are the choices and options that I can provide my family? You know, will I be able to take care of my parents if they get really sick? What kind of house can me and my husband live in? And those sorts of choices about being part of the green Carmichael family, you know, and maybe that is because I'm a woman and I'm communal or whatever, but that's how I think about it. So I want to go back to the don't negotiate against yourself because it makes so much sense that you should not be convincing yourself of all these reasons why you should not get something. But I think that goes against like our thoughtful nature. You know, we don't want to show up somewhere and say like, these are all the things I want. This is what I deserve. Here's all

the value I bring. Like we're also very cognizant of all the like realities, maybe reasons why we might not get those things or why it might not be the right time. But I can see how that's undermining, as Amy said. Yeah, it's not just. But, you know, what's wrong with advocating for yourself? I mean, this is the time that you ought to be calling in your friends, your mentors, whoever it is you trust who can help you have this conversation. It really is helpful to say, you know, let's do some role playing. Preparing a little bit ahead of time is, I find that very helpful. Yeah. I also think, Nicole, to that point, so in the HBR Guide to Negotiating, there is an exercise that is recommended in there that is like list all the objections that the other party might have.

And the point of doing that is not to talk yourself down, but to have then done your homework so that if they do raise those, you can counter them and say, yes, well, I've, that's a good point. I've thought about that. And my answer is whatever it is. Coming up, we're talking to Tiffany Dufu about why putting our heads down and just working really hard is not going to get us the promotions that we want. Before we do that, though, we check in with a very successful woman who burned out bad and learned from it. Ariana Huffington was two years into having co-founded the Huffington Post and being its editor-in-chief when she fainted from exhaustion, hit her head on her desk, and broke her cheekbone. Since then, she's been telling people that to be more productive, we need to get enough sleep. Here she is at TED Women 2010. And we women are going to lead the way in this new revolution, this new feminist issue.

We are literally going to sleep our way to the top, literally. She's built a business around saving others from sleep deprivation and burnout, Thrive Global, which publishes articles about well-being and purpose. The company also makes apps that do things like help keep email from ruining your vacation. We wanted to hear more about how she's moved beyond the pressure to be perfect and do everything and is trying to get more women to do the same. So Nicole and I called Ariana at her New York office. So I'm curious how people respond to this idea that you don't need to be always on. You don't need to sacrifice your well-being and time with family. Like, are there any differences between how men and women tend to be much more open, I think partly because women are paying a heavy price. You know, the culture of burnout that fuels so many companies is particularly hard on women.

It's particularly hard on women because they still have to be primarily responsible for children, even though we are trying to change that culturally. And also because women process stress differently. So we have data that shows that women in stressful jobs have a 40% greater risk of heart disease and a 60% greater risk of diabetes. One of the reasons, as you know, is that women tend to be much more perfectionist, much harder on ourselves, you know, much more self-judgmental. And so we have a harder time just letting things be the way they are

and accepting that we are going to make mistakes, that we are not flawless and all the things that go into really having a demanding job. Where do you think that pressure that women especially seem to feel comes from, that sort of pressure to be perfect? Oh, I think it's very old. I mean, you probably can look around you at all your women friends and colleagues and see how universal that is. And now, I mean, I have two millennial daughters, and I see it in them the way I saw it in myself.

And it takes work to actually get beyond it. I call this voice in our heads the obnoxious roommate living in my head that judges me and is so self-critical or the negative self-talk, which frankly is more draining than anything we actually do. I'd love to know how that changes over the course of a woman's career, though. Like, is there a point when that, you know, the negative self-talk starts to decrease when you start to gain confidence? I think there's no question that getting older means that we don't look over our shoulder as much,

being as conscious of how we are seen or whether we are approved. But I think inner work makes a big difference here, a bigger difference than what stage you are in your career. Are you taking time to observe yourself and your reactions, taking time to be much more conscious of what triggers stress? In my experience, that is a much more defining characteristic than what age people are. 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, Thank you. 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. Here's another story about burnout that has a happy ending. In 2008, Tiffany Dufu had a high-powered job dedicated to getting more women into government. She was also raising a two-year-old with her husband.

Then, during the Great Recession, her husband got laid off. Tiffany became the sole breadwinner as well as the meal planner, child care expert, and life organizer. It was all too much, and one day she came home to find her out-of-work husband watching basketball on the couch. What's for dinner? He asked. Overwhelmed, she screamed back, you tell me. It was a turning point in their relationship and her career. It started a series of conversations between the two of them over what it really meant to have it all. And when I say have it all, I mean having a career that is driven by my passion and my purpose. It's having a meaningful relationship with my partner.

It's raising conscious global citizens and on most days being pretty healthy and fit outside of an occasional cold and being joyful. As they started to figure it out together, Tiffany began to do the kind of ruthless delegating and time protecting that most women think isn't possible. And she noticed that although she wanted to talk to other women about her life's work, getting more women into leadership roles, women kept asking her for advice on how to get more done in less time. She realized the two would have to go together, and so she wrote a book about it called Drop the Ball, Achieving More by Doing Less.

Now, Tiffany's the chief leadership officer at LAVO, a professional network for millennials. Nicole and I talked with her about how she's helping other women to not get lost in their work. So what is the advice that you now give to other women? Well, I definitely tell them to drop the ball. And for me, you know, I wrote a book called Drop the Ball because I used to be someone who was terrified of ever dropping a ball. It meant that I was failing to take timely action. I was disappointing myself. I was disappointing the other people in my life who love me. In my particular case, I was disappointing the entire black race, which sounds dramatic, but that is actually how it felt. And I decided at some point to reappropriate the term. you've released these unrealistic expectations that all of us face, no matter who we are, about who we should be, that you figured out what really matters most to you and what your highest

and best use is, and that you've meaningfully engaged the people in your life to support you in your journey. So, you know, my biggest piece of advice is, first of all, just figure out what matters most. But you're not saying to strive for less. Is that right? Well, I think really it's about redefining what it is that you're striving for. And why are you striving for that? And I think it's less about dropping the things that are not as important as it is dropping the things that really don't reflect your highest and best use. When I talk about your highest and best use, I mean, what are the things that you do extraordinarily well with very little effort, probably because you've just done them over and over again, not necessarily because you're a prodigy, combined with what are the things that only you can do? It would be highly irresponsible or callous to delegate these things to someone else. Those are the things that you want to hold on to, that you want to prioritize.

And once you're clear about what you need to be focused on, it's much easier to then say, oh my gosh, all this other stuff, I can let this go. Not because it's not important, but because it is not the most efficient or effective strategy or mechanism for you to really achieve your goals. And I'll give an example. One of the things that only I can do in relationship to my kids is instill values in them. It's very hard to outsource the installation of values, you know, in a human being. And so my highest and best use in raising conscious global citizens is engaging my kids in meaningful conversations each and every day. I am their coach in chief. What kind of day did you create for yourself today? Who did you laugh with today?

Now, does that mean that there wasn't, I don't know, a Halloween costume that somebody needed to have made or cookies that were supposed to have been baked for the bake sale? Sure, there's still all of that. Some people might think that those things are important, but I can drop the ball on any of those things because they're no longer in my job description that I've curated for what it means to be an extraordinary mother. As long as I'm having my meaningful conversation each and every day, I know that I'm doing an awesome job and I can drop the ball on the rest. So I want to dig a little deeper on this topic of shaping the next generation. So you've said that your mission is to advance women and girls. And you talk in the book really in heartbreaking terms sometimes about what it is

like to be a dutiful daughter who like, like you talk about having to leave Spelman College, because even though you wanted very much to be there, like that was a case where what you wanted didn't come first. Reading some of those passages was really hard because it really spoke to a part of me that's like, yes, I know so much how it feels to like have, be unable to sort of get what you want through the thicket of what other people want of you. How do we communicate to girls like the advice or the values they need so they don't have to deal with that? There's only one way to communicate that to girls, and that is to model it. That's the only way.

That's the only credible way that they'll believe. I asked my daughter a few weeks ago how she thought I was doing as a mom. I just wanted to check in, see how things were going. And her first response was interesting. She says, well, based on what category? I was like, oh, I said, okay, well, there are categories. She was like, yeah, like, tell me, like, I can tell you your grade, like in each category, you know, where you are, like on a scale of one to 10. And then you can do the math and figure out like overall how you're doing as a mom. So what was interesting was one of the categories was how like happy, you know, you strive to make your kids. And it was an interesting

category to me because I didn't score very high on that category. I got a four in this category. And it pained me a little bit. I thought, wow, you know, I don't make you happy. And she said, mom, she said, the reason why I gave you that score is because it's really important that you're happy. And I know that it's important to you for you to be happy. And that if you had to choose like your happiness or my happiness, you would choose your happiness. And sometimes I don't like that at all. But I know that you're doing that because one day when I grow up, you want me to choose my happiness. Wow. How old is your daughter? She's eight years old.

Wow. She's eight years old. And I thought that was the most, it was such a painful moment for me, but it was also a moment where I thought, okay, it's working. I want to ask you also about, because part of dropping the ball is not just that things don't get done. It's that you have to delegate them to other people, right? And in the book, you talk about the trap of imaginary delegation, which was another thing I was like, oh my God, that's what I'm doing wrong. So tell us about that. Yeah. So imaginary delegation is basically this phenomenon where you assign someone a task and you fully expect them to complete the task. And when they don't, you become annoyed, sometimes even angry. But you never actually tell them verbally that you assigned the task to them. And then when common sense prevails and you say to

yourself, you know, I never actually told him to take out the recycling, you quickly snap back at common sense. Well, nobody has to tell me to take out the recycling around here. I mean, can't people just see that this is what needs to happen? If you're someone who ever walks into your home or your office and think to yourself, like, am I the only person who can see that X, Y, or Z needs to be done? You're probably doing a little bit of imaginary delegating. And, you know, I use this strategy for a long time to try to engage people in my life, namely in this book, My Husband, to do things to support me. And, you know, it just obviously doesn't work because people don't know what's inside of your head. And so I had to learn how to not only stop imaginary delegating, but then figuring out how to delegate with joy and how to really get the support that I needed.

Well, explain that. How do you delegate with joy and how do you make it like, do you just accept that you need to be the delegator? Because I do run into that all the time where I'm like, it is Wednesday night. The recycling always goes out Wednesday night. Like, I shouldn't have to ask anyone else to do it. So I think in some ways it's really tough because in the world that we live in, it's not fair, but women are socially conditioned to tie their value to things like whether or not the recycling is taken out. And men are not. Okay.

So that's part of the reason why we see those things. But the other piece is if there is something that is happening in your home on a regular basis to which you don't have responsibility for, you don't normally do it, sometimes it can be invisible to you. And I basically created a list for the first time of all of the things that were required in order for us to manage our home. And the whole idea was for us to divide these responsibilities between the two of us. But what happened was that he wanted to add more to the list. And I couldn't imagine what could possibly be added to the list since I was the one who did everything and I knew what was on the list. But as it turns out, there were a number of things like watering plants that it dawned on me, you know, they are alive and I never water them. So, you know, those kinds of experiences help you to understand that, you know, taking out the recycling is in your column right now and you see that, but it really would require an act on your

part to help other people to see it. And so delegating with joy is just putting a task and an ask in a much higher context and more important context than just a chore, for example. And I first delegated with joy in conjunction with two things that I needed my husband to do, which seems so small, but it was such a big deal to me. And, you know, I just scheduled, I did what I would do at work. I scheduled time with him that didn't conflict with any sporting event because he's addicted to pretty much every sport. And, you know, I sat him down and I said, hey, I want to talk to you. Lately, I've been really stressed and I feel like it's having a negative impact on our relationship and my ability to do really amazing things in the world.

And I've been doing a lot of thinking. I figured out what matters most to me. And I feel like there's a bunch of things that I'm doing that don't really ladder up to that. And you are my biggest cheerleader and my biggest champion. And I know that we started this journey together because we committed to supporting one another. And I was wondering in the interest of helping me figure out how to be my best self, if you could do a couple of things. And when I tell you what they are, you're going to be like, why didn't you just send me a text message? Why is she giving me this big speech? But babe, that's how important these two things are to me. One is that you take out the recycling and the other is that you pick up the dry cleaning. There you go. Because you start small and build on success.

Yeah. The book is full of great advice. Do you ever struggle to follow your own excellent advice? Oh, all the time, every day. Yeah, we're all on a journey. I do have some practices that help me tremendously. For example, I have a drop the ball question that I ask myself multiple times a day, especially when I've got a lot of emails in my inbox and a lot of

deadlines, which is basically, is X, Y, or Z responding to this email, you know, answering this phone call, saying yes to this committee, my highest and best use in achieving XYZ, you know, a really healthy partnership or raising conscious global citizens or advancing women and girls, which are the things that matter most to me. And if the answer is yes, I'm like, okay, let me stop and just figure out how I might be able to make this happen. But most of the time, the answer is no. And I move on. There are consequences, you know, to dropping the ball. But I certainly move on knowing that I'm doing what I need to do in order to create a life, evaluated similarly to men. So how do we make sure that we can do less without hurting ourselves in the long run? Yeah. I think at work, dropping the ball is more about really getting over what I call the Lone Ranger syndrome. So there's just this sense

in the workplace that it's a meritocracy when it's not. And so what happens at work is that women are often very focused on the task at hand, the project, the kinds of relationships with people who can support our narrative inside of the workplace. And women often don't think of that as part of their actual job. They think of that as some kind of extracurricular activity. And so if they, for example, are on deadline and they, you know, everyone's going to drinks, you know, after work and they're like, wait a minute, but we have this client thing that's due tomorrow. A woman would very naturally say, well, I just need to stay at the office, you know, to complete the deadline. That's what's the highest, that's the highest priority. But then, you know, a few months later when the person who actually went out to drinks is the one that got promoted, it's kind of like, what's going on? What's happening here? So I think that developing those relationships is a really important part of making our lives easier.

And, you know, relying on other people because we have really been taught that we're supposed to be so self-sufficient is often very difficult. So much so that when there are programs and strategies in the workplace designed to support women. So for example, some kind of leadership program, you will actually have women who will say, well, I really don't want to participate in that because I don't want anyone to think that, you know, I got promoted or I got this job or that I had some kind of leg up because just because I'm a woman, like I want it. I want that to be based on, you know, just my my hard work and my performance. I really want that to speak for itself. And it's such a misnomer. Like your performance does not speak for you. Your performance needs a voice and you have to be the voice.

Other people have to be the voice. And by the way, white men do not run the world because they all just picked themselves up by their own bootstraps and worked hard, believe it or not. You know, all of them got help along the way. So, you know, there's really nothing wrong with that. I am here as the cumulative investment of a lot of people who have opened many, many doors for me. And I'm very proud of that. And is it possible that I got an opportunity because somebody thought that Tiffany was a superstar and I was their mentee and so they put my name above someone else's? Yeah. Does it mean that I didn't deserve or that I wasn't entitled to it?

No, because I'm just as brilliant as the other person who might have gotten the opportunity. And my responsibility as the beneficiary of those kinds of opportunities is to make sure that not only the people who have supported me, but that the world gets a really solid return on their investment. And that's what I'm trying to do every day is make enough difference in the world that everyone who's ever taken me out to coffee or lunch or promoted me or said Tiffany is the one who should get this opportunity in a meeting that they feel really proud that they did that. Well, Tiffany, thank you. I really appreciate you. I know how busy you are. I've read the book. So thank you for taking this time. No problem. Thank you. Thank you so much for the advice. It's good advice. Coming up, Amy responds to a few of your requests for advice. But first, a bit of wisdom from one of my favorite writers, Susan Orlean. Susan is on staff at The New Yorker and is the author of many books, including The Orchid Thief. As wildly successful as she has been as a writer, she told me that she has suffered from imposter syndrome, that chronic fear that you

just don't deserve your achievements. Admittedly, I experienced it much more when I was starting my career than I do now, but it never totally goes away. I remember many years ago when I actually was already writing regularly. That's how I made my income. I supported myself as a writer. There was no question that that's what I was doing. But I called my accountant as I was doing my tax forms and I said, what should I put down where it says profession? And he said, well, put down writer. You're a writer, aren't you? And I thought, oh, but that seems so arrogant to claim I'm a writer. You know, it sounds like I'm flattering myself. And also, I'm not really a writer. I mean, other people are writers.

I'm not a writer. And I kind of mumbled a little bit of this to him. And I could hear his absolute bafflement on the other side of the phone. Perhaps no one who's an accountant has dark moments of the soul where they think, am I really an accountant? But Susan finally did accept that she really was what she set out to be. And I asked her what she'd say to women who aren't there yet for one reason or another? There's no career, no life path that I can imagine you setting out on and feeling successful at without confidence. Unfortunately, you often are called upon to have that confidence before the world has affirmed that you have reason to be confident. You land in a high achieving position, you feel confident, but you need it before you leap. And that has to be something that you examine yourself

and see, do you have the guts and the grit to say, I can make this, I can try this. And I want to end up where it proves me that my confidence heartsick because I would never want to go to my grave saying I always wanted to be a and never having tried. So, Amy, one of the many gifts you bring to this show is your very sage workplace advice. Hey, so I'm just going to offer some unsolicited advice. The other piece of advice I'll give, and you didn't ask for it, but I'm going to give it anyway. Here's one of the most liberating things you can learn. Oh man, it is really hard to hear that. But this is why we're asking you to answer some questions from our listeners.

Okay, I'll do my best. It's sort of embarrassing to be the know-it-all. But you do know a lot. You know more than me. Well, I've been out there longer than you. I should know. So this is not unsolicited advice. They've asked.

Well, that's really going to stop me cold. But this time you don't have to do it by yourself because we have brought in our HBR colleague, editor Allison Beard. She co-hosts our new advice podcast, Dear HBR. Each episode, there's a theme like difficult people and listeners write in with their workplace dilemmas and get answers. So we figured who better to help us out today. So Amy and Allison, take it away. Allison, great to have you here with us. Thank you so much for having me in.

Here's our first question. So my name's Anna Harris. I work as a senior manager in the food industry. I've just returned to work after having my third and fourth children, so twins. I've been working in my current business for around three years, and the whole time that I've done that, I've been working in my current business for around three years and the whole time that I've done that I've been working four days a week. I'm now in the position where I'm doing an MBA and work have been great in supporting me by giving me a day a week to work on my MBA so that

means I'm effectively now only three days a week in the office. So my question is this MBA will take me in my opinion to a position where I'm ready to be a sales director. But I have absolutely no will to do full time. I don't feel that it's appropriate for me. I have small children. I guess my question is, is it possible to be a sales director on four days a week? Wow. What do you think?

First of all, I really identify with this woman's situation. I have small children at home myself. I had them when I was living in the UK. I got long maternity leaves, and so I got accustomed to spending time with them. And then I did go back to work full-time initially, moved to Boston, ended up working at Harvard Business Review. And when I came, I said I was upfront about the fact that I wanted to spend more time at home than a full-time job would allow. And initially, I was asked to sort of prove myself. And that was fine. And I was happy to do that. I ended up working with my bosses,

first Catherine Bell, and now you, Amy, to figure out a flexible arrangement that worked for me. So I really applaud the fact that this woman knows what she wants and how she wants to balance work, family, life, and that she sort of is going to go in with a point of view. I would say she needs to think about a lot of things. You all have talked about this a lot already on the podcast. There is a motherhood penalty. You are stigmatized for being a mom, for asking for a flexible

schedule. You will be paid less, not just than men, but paid less than other women who don't have children or don't have child care responsibility. You might be working full-time hours, even though you're on a part-time schedule. I think that as long as she goes in with a strong point of view, she's able to demonstrate her value. She makes the point that working moms are often some of the most efficient employees. And then she also has a flexible attitude about, is it really four days a week that she wants, Or is it a more flexible schedule that she wants? And I think, you know, especially in a sales director job, you know, maybe that sort of strict parameter, I need to work four days a week and I can't ever be available on Friday, for example,

is too much. You know, I typically work from home on Fridays. I'm in here to record this. And I, that's how I operate my life. Like, you know, last night I left work at three to take my kids because they had a talent show. And then I went back to work at 930 at home. So I think maybe what she really wants is flexibility in her schedule, not necessarily this sort of strict four day a week policy that her employer might balk at. Yeah. And I just want to add one thing is that when she's interviewing for jobs, if she chooses to move, she needs to interview her interviewer as well, because so much of this is dependent on the attitudes of management. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, she clearly is already

working at a firm that has let her advance and is supporting her in an MBA program when she is a part-time worker. So they obviously understand that that doesn't mean she's less committed or less ambitious, which is great. So she can stick with that current company where she already has a proven track record. I would advise her to do it. But you're right. If she decides to move to another firm, she needs to make sure it's a firm where there's a culture of flexible work, not just for working moms, but for everyone. Yeah. And I really want to just put a yellow line through that, what you said a second ago about working mothers getting more done. I mean, that has absolutely been my experience as a manager.

It's that old thing about want something done, ask a busy person. I've noticed a kind of world class efficiency out of people who have so many balls in the air, just to mix in a few more metaphors. I know you're not just talking about me, but thank you. And to your point about interviewing the manager, you know, I didn't interview with you when I joined HBR. However, when you first came, your very first day of work, I remember really being worried that you wouldn't be as flexible as my previous boss had been. And I asked you to go to coffee and I sort of just

did an unload with you where I said, this is how my life works and I really need my life to keep working this way. And it doesn't mean I'm not committed and it doesn't mean I'm not going to work hard for you. And you said, calm down. It's no problem. And so I knew we would have a great relationship. And I think she needs to do that with whatever organization and hiring manager that she wants to work with. Yeah, just be upfront. Be upfront and don't be afraid of this. Let's hear a little bit more about her situation. My sense at the moment is that lots and lots of women are working three or four days a week.

And lots and lots of men would like to but feel that it's not appropriate for them, and are quite vocal about that. So I've had more than one male colleague openly say to me, I don't feel comfortable asking to work four days a week or working four days a week. Saying that quite openly to me and somebody who is working four days a week, the assumption is that if you're doing less than full-time, you're not ambitious, but I think that the words ambitious and mother do go together. It shouldn't be a kind of dirty phrase or something that people feel uncomfortable talking about.

Anna is right. Men, they don't request it, but they also just take it and do it without formally asking for it. There was great research basically showing that women did officially work part-time hours, and often that didn't mean that they worked the part-time hours they were supposed to work. They actually worked closer to full-time hours. Whereas men worked probably the same number of hours, but had never asked for a part-time or a flexible arrangement,

and that was fine because they were passing and I don't think there's anything wrong with men doing that I think they're actually smarter and there is a level of guilt associated with the idea that you know I'm going to do the school run right now even though this is supposed to be I'm supposed to be working full-time but I think to your point if you're getting your job done and you are ticking all the boxes, hitting all of your targets, you should never apologize for taking the time you need to handle the things in your personal life that matter to you. There are two things there that I want to pull out that you said. One is that women do, in my experience, tend to overcompensate. And so,

you know, they will penalize themselves, if you will. Right. And then the other part of it is, it doesn't matter whether you're editing at nine o'clock at night. If you're comfortable with that, fine. As long as you're hitting your deadlines and the work is super quality, which it is always, who cares? Who cares? I guess the question though, is we do work in publishing. Yeah. Which is maybe a more friendly. Yeah, she's in, Anna's in sales.

Yeah. And that's a different matter. She's got to keep to her client's schedules. Exactly. As much as anything. Yeah. And so I do worry about that. Yeah, good point.

But as I said, you know, I think maybe not going in with this hard and fast, I'm never here on Fridays, you know, sort of being more open minded in what she wants to negotiate for and what her firm is willing to accept, I think is a good idea. The other point that I think Claudia Golden has made is this idea of having a stand in, you know, someone you trust and that your clients trust that can be the stand-in for you. So if you are at a school play or have had to take your kids to the doctors or it's your Friday off, you have someone else there who your client is just as comfortable with. And if she can develop that kind of partnership with someone in her workplace, I think that goes a long way to assuaging her employer's fears about the fact that clients might be upset. Yeah, I think that's a good point. And I also wonder if Anna can structure her job so that she does the face-to-face with clients

on certain days and does the paperwork when she's home. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I tend to come into the office when I have meetings, important meetings, because face-to-face is required for that, and it's important, and I wouldn't ever give that up. But when there's work that you can do at home, you should do it at home. And if you do want to carve out time that's just mom time,

that you don't have to be on call, I think that's fine too. I think slightly unrealistic. I'm always willing to answer emails when I'm at the park. I'm willing to answer emails or take a call when I'm at the school play. I'll duck out of the room for a little bit. I remember a great story from Ellen Kuhlman, the former CEO of DuPont, who would talk about sitting at basketball tournaments for an entire weekend and just going up to the top bleacher to do her work when she needed to. I think the story we wrote with her was a big M&A deal. And she had a huge basketball tournament over the time that that was happening. And she handled it because she was both a mom and a CEO. So let's go on to our next question.

Hello, my name is Christina. I am a consultant and I work in a variety of sectors. But my particular project right now is such that I'm working in the religious sector with some pretty conservative leaders. And they're conservative in their beliefs, but also conservative, I think, and traditional in the way that they view women in the workplace. And I feel pretty confident in the advice that I'm giving and the plan that I provide. But I'm often the youngest person in the room by 15 years or more. What advice have you given women in my position who may be in temporary roles roles or they're not really in a position to

shift culture significantly, but still have a job to get done. And we have to overcome age differences and pretty traditional conservative workplace models. Well, the good news is your job is temporary. You're right in noting that particularly at a client company, you shouldn't be setting out to change the culture. I do think, though, that you should advocate for yourself and put your position forward. I mean, your success depends on you getting good outcomes at this client engagement. We've published research that shows a few ways to do that, not just as a woman, but as someone who's young on the team, you know, someone who doesn't have instant influence or instant respect. One of the pieces I think about,

and you know this one well, Amy, is connect, then lead. So the idea is that you need to lead with empathy, not with competence. And this is true for everyone in terms of being liked and respected and trusted and gaining influence, but it's particularly true for women. I know it sounds like terrible advice that you need to sort of be soft before you can be hard, but I think it's, you know, good advice for everyone, right? Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. The only other thing I'd add to that, Alison, is that often young women will walk into a room where they are the youngest or one of the few remembers that she's there to deliver a service and doesn't worry about being younger and doesn't think about being the only woman in the room. Because that's going to flummox her. Mm-hmm.

Right. Focus on the thing. Yes, absolutely. And that just helps on the confidence side of things. Yeah. And confidence is a great, great persuader. Yeah. And the good thing is I do think Christina seems to have confidence.

Yeah. You know, she really does think that she can make a difference at this firm, which is great. And I think she should hold on to that. And again, I'm not advocating that she change who she is or temper anything she's doing, but there are just small, small things that you can do to establish a level of trust and then show your credibility. I think you're absolutely right. The other piece that I instantly thought of when I heard this question was Women Find Your Voice by Catherine Heath, Jill Flynn, and Mary Davis Holt. I know you recently spoke with Jill Flynn on the podcast also,

and so you may have covered a lot of this, but I do think it bears repeating. They argue that women, and sort of anyone really, can do better in meetings when they do three things. One is engage in sort of the pre-meeting chit-chat. And that's really just sort of giving people a chance to get to know you personally. Well, that's the connect, and connect and lead. Absolutely. But then a little bit more strategically, it sort of maybe allows you to know

what the real agenda is for the meeting and sort of hear what people's views are before the formalities begin. They also advise preparing what you're going to say, which I'm sure Christina is doing anyway, because she seems like a very competent consultant, but using more muscular language. So instead of saying, well, I think we should, you might say something like, well, I strongly recommend that we do this instead. And then they also advise staying on an even keel,

which sort of annoys me as advice to women. You know, it's sort of, yeah, it does. I'm not going to lie. So don't get hysterical. Yeah, no, I know it's terrible. But at the same time, you do have to understand what the research shows about perceptions. And unfortunately, when women show emotion, it is perceived as emotional. And with men, it's perceived as passion. So I think that she really needs to be as professional as she can be, make those personal connections, establish a level of rapport and trust, and then get to a point where she can really show her stuff. Yeah. I think also finding an ally in the organization. I know that all the men in this place aren't sexist pigs.

So I think she can find someone who is her, can be an ally. And perhaps they start suggesting ideas together. You can use other people to be a conduit for good ideas. And she can run her presentations by him. of time, which should elicit some good feedback. Yeah, absolutely. The one other thing I would say to her, though, and I did assume that she's working for a firm, if it's to the point where it is preventing her from being able to do her job, that is something that she should speak about with her boss. You know, maybe nothing can be changed on this assignment, but the company can certainly think more carefully about where they're assigning her in the future and just make sure that there's a better, you know, consultant client fit in this situation. And she didn't say whether she's sort

of experiencing incivility or harassment or anything like that. But if she is, there's certainly a call for doing the job as best she can. Christine Porath, who's a great expert on incivility, argues sort of being brief, friendly, and firm. Sort of don't do more than you need to do, but just get the job done and then get out. But there could be a call to say, look, this isn't working and perhaps we should figure this out. But there could be call to say, look, this isn't working. And, you know, perhaps we should figure this out. But I wouldn't have her come to her manager with a problem just yet because it doesn't sound like it's that dire a problem. Yeah. Yeah. So, Alison, the view from your seat, how different was doing what you just did

from what you do on Dear HBR? Well, it felt a little bit worse because we normally have a guest expert in the room, so I'm not the only person who's just citing research. And then I also have my colleague Dan, my co-host Dan McGinn, who is truly one of my best friends, and he and I have a great time giving advice together. He gives me a lot of advice. Not that you're not great also. That's okay, Allison.

But I feel like I can make fun of Dan a little bit more than I can make fun of you. Oh, you can make fun of me at your peril. No, but the questions themselves are very similar. You know, we have found that people are writing in with really thorny dilemmas and sometimes heartbreaking ones. And so I've been really excited to answer all of these questions and try to help people out, again, with the help of Dan and experts who do deep research in the fields that we're studying. The topics we've covered so far are office romance, difficult people, first-time bosses, and we're about to do generational conflict.

Well, it was really great having you. Thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you. So, who has advice on saying goodbye? I'm really terrible at saying goodbye. I usually just quickly walk away. Yeah, I hate it too. Although sometimes when I'm sort of being official Amy, I sort of make a point of saying goodbye properly in a way my mother would approve of. Right. You know, a handshake and eye contact and all the stuff that's so difficult. I do that, but I also love the rise of ghosting. I'm just like, okay, time time to leave sidle out the side door yeah i struggle with

goodbyes i always hint at some like future thing happening so it's not fully goodbye something is going to happen in the future and that is true this time too we are thinking about doing some more episodes so i'm really hoping that we will and that everyone will stay subscribed and that we will have an update in the weeks or perhaps months ahead. In the meantime, we will keep checking our inbox. So please keep emailing us, womenatworkathbr.org. I have loved going through the emails we get. It's so gratifying to hear how people kind of take in what we're talking about. You know, we rarely get a chance to talk about these kinds, you know, we talk about strategy and we talk about innovation. This stuff is real and it's every day and it's in your face

if you're a woman in the workplace. And it's just great to be able to sit down with you guys and talk about it and talk to these incredibly smart folks we've brought on as guests. Yeah, I can't think of anything else that I have worked on here in 11 years at HBR that has gotten this kind of reaction or that has been so personally meaningful to me. Yeah. So it's been super awesome. Yeah. I hope we get to do it again. I've loved working with you too. Yeah, likewise. And Amanda, who always is lurking silently in the background and making this all happen.

She's here smiling. She's not allowed to cut herself out this time, our amazing producer, Amanda. So while the podcast is coming to an end, maybe temporarily, we do publish an awful lot on gender and the topics we've been covering over these last six episodes. So check out hbr.org. Well, and I also interview women all the time for the HBR IdeaCast podcast. Like we have a great interview coming up with Drew Faust, the outgoing president of Harvard, the first female president of Harvard, on what that role has been like for her. So I hope people will check that out while we are away. And now we're all going silent

because we don't know how to say goodbye to the audience we love. It's not goodbye, it's just see you later. We'll be back.