Women at Work - When Women Compete

Episode Date: May 20, 2019

We discuss how women think about and approach competition at work and get advice on how to keep our disagreements — and people’s perceptions of them — from turning negative. Guest: Leah Sheppard. Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

Over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. So, I am the opposite of an athlete, so I'm not going to speak from that expertise, but I mean, I played enough sports that I remember, you know, wanting to win, just really wanting to kick the other person's ass. And the other person was always a woman. And then, you know, going out afterwards for a drink. Right. You know? Yeah. Just a friendly game.

Really competitive on the court. And then, you know. But have you been competitive with women in that way at work? I've been competed with. I don't feel particularly competitive. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think about, like, there have been projects that I've really wanted to be on. And I know that other people have also put their hat in the Right. Yeah. I mean, I think about like there have been projects that I've really wanted to be on.

And I know that other people have also put their hat in the ring. Yeah. And I've definitely strategized around how do I make myself look like the more appealing candidate. But you're not looking to take out the other guys. Yeah. Not, you know, taking a bat to her kneecaps. Yeah.

But definitely. But I'm definitely thinking, how do I position myself as different and better? It's not about ever mentioning that person's name. It's just drawing on my characteristics or my success. Yeah, you see, that's where I felt like, you know, competition can actually be healthy, not in the part where it's me versus Sue, right? But it's the part where you're challenged to try harder, to do better. That's where it feels really healthy to me. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review.

I'm Nicole Torres. I'm Amy Bernstein. And I'm Amy Gallo. This episode, we're discussing how women think about and approach competition, whether we're vying for a major promotion, trying to earn a bigger bonus, or getting our way on an important decision. Even if we think of competition as healthy, people who see us arguing for what we want at work might see it differently,

especially if we're going up against another woman. In a way, like, oh, look, it's a catfight. Well, no, it's just a normal disagreement between two co-workers. That's our guest expert, Leah Shepard. We'll talk with her in a bit about where that catfight stereotype comes from, plus how to keep our disagreements and people's perceptions of them from getting personal. But before that, a listener named Katie emailed us about a particularly challenging experience with competition that she had early in her career. I got on the phone with her to ask what happened way back when and to hear how she sees it now. Hi, Katie. Hi, nice to talk with you, Amy. How are you? I'm good. So let me start by asking you, when you think back on your career, what are a few of the ways you felt that you had to compete professionally?

Like, what did that feel like to you? What did that look like to you? You know, I think especially early on in my career, a lot of female colleagues would hold back information or hold back help. And that to me was just as bad as being out in the open and being competitive. I work in the financial services industry, which is very male dominated. And, you know, there's so few women that it's like, oh, there's one successful women, we've checked that box, and there isn't room for more than one. That's a big challenge, I think, because we need more examples for more women to feel comfortable going into any industry, but particularly male-dominated industries. And when they don't

see multiple examples, I think the idea is given, well, there is only room for one. And that's a bad example to set. Yeah, yeah, it sure is. So you told us about pretty early on in your career and you were sort of victimized by someone in your office. Can you describe that moment of competition, what it felt like to you? Yeah, so I had started in my role at this financial services firm, and I had been assigned to an area that was not doing well financially, and we were in a for-profit operation. This female colleague was also in that for-profit operation on another project. And her area was floundering too, but not as badly as mine. So at first,

I think she was like, well, I'm in the same boat with this colleague. It's fine. When I started to make a little headway in turning around the financial results of my area, I think she got the sense that perhaps we were being viewed in different boats and not the same boat by our male colleagues and by management. And we would have meetings, and I would raise an idea, and she would say things like, well, I know you're new and you wouldn't understand, but, or, you know, try to leverage the technical information. Financial services, obviously, there's a huge learning curve. And I feel like she would leverage that against me to say, well, you don't understand insurance. Just trying to undercut me in front of others.

She tried to keep me out of meetings and not include me. She would control information. And she tried to just, I felt like, amplify any mistakes or missteps I made. And it really shook my confidence because I felt like if someone who was this close in age to me, a female in a male-dominated workspace, if she didn't think I could cut it, then how was I supposed to win over or approve to the male CEO who was as old as my father? I remember going home from work so many nights and feeling like, what am I doing wrong? And then I thought it was me. Like, maybe I'm just imagining this whole thing.

And so for a while, I didn't raise it with anyone, not my boss, not even other coworkers. But finally, I decided, am I crazy? Like, I just, I need to raise this. So when I raised it to my boss, who was a male in his mid-40s, he told me that this woman was envious, that I was making progress on the key initiatives that our management team was noticing. And I shook my head. I just didn't understand why that would be a point of conflict.

And without missing a beat, he looked at me and said, mirror, mirror on the wall, Katie. It's that simple. And he walked away and didn't provide further context. And I thought, what in the world? And then I realized that in his mind, in what he had observed, she thought that there was only room for one woman who was trying to make her way in this financial services industry, just like the Fairytale Kingdom and Snow White. And I just, I thought, do men look at it this way? Is it this personal?

Like, of course they see competition, but do they see it this way? Is it this personal? Like, of course, they see competition, but do they see it in those black and white terms? And it really affected me. And I've remembered the story all these years later. And in fact, I've shared it with other females who I work with or who I manage that have faced similar situations. Okay, I want to dig into the story a little bit. So before you went to your manager, and he said, mirror, mirror, what did you think was going on between you and this woman? I thought that maybe somewhere along the line, I had said something that was a legitimate or shown that I wasn't legitimately competent.

I was partially afraid that he was going to say, well, Katie, yes, I agree with this woman's observations and you're not cutting it in your job. I mean, that's what I was afraid of. I wasn't necessarily as afraid of her as afraid of the fact that she was raising things that were true. And that was my bigger concern, to be honest. Do you think that your colleagues at the time saw this competition, that they picked up on this dynamic? Well, I think at least my boss did. Because obviously we were sending out that strong of a signal that he had no compunctions about calling it out. And that concerned me too.

And I've thought about that in the years subsequent because, you know, how much are we telegraphing those feelings to our colleagues? And then how does that affect how they view us? us. But again, I think the part of it that relates back to the topic of, you know, female competition is, would those comments ever have been made to male colleagues who worked and were in competition with one another? Would it have taken that personal turn to the point where my boss said it? That's the part that bothered me. So did you ever talk to her directly about this? You know what? I didn't. And she left the company maybe two years after this initial incident. And I still am at the company. So I haven't, I didn't at the time. I think the version of me now, you know, 16 years later would view it a lot differently. I wish I had gone to her because I think what I might have found is that she was dealing with some of the same frustrations and insecurities that I was.

Being in a workplace every day where there weren't females. And, you know, maybe she was worried that there was only place for one. And maybe we would have found that there was some common ground that we could have had sharing that experience of being in that kind of a workplace. But I didn't give her that chance

and I didn't give myself that chance. So it sounds as if at the time you completely bought your boss's explanation. Do you still buy it? You know what? That's a really interesting question. I think it was easier to buy it at the time when it was so neatly wrapped in a bow and

we were the only two female young employees in that situation. I wonder about that now. If I let that his explanation also prevent me from trying to pursue a better relationship with her. And, you know, that might have been a maturity issue on my part at 26 versus being 42 now and looking at it a little differently. But that in and of itself is a problem. If women don't recognize when they're being sold a narrative about a dynamic in the office and they let that affect their own behavior. What do you want to understand better about the competition between women in the workplace? What do you wish you could see more clearly? I guess that it's there and that it is a real thing and that we haven't really, like so many issues that you all talk

about on your podcast, it's not something that we've really hashed out. We let other people define it. Competition in and of itself isn't a bad thing. I think it makes us better. I think it gives us something to strive for. And I know it's helped me in certain situations in my own career. But as a manager, how can I put swim lanes around that so that it remains positive and doesn't become something that eats into productivity? Great. Katie, thank you so much. It was a pleasure. 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. Thank you. 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. Katie's story shows the many ways competition at work can get complicated, which is why we're hashing out the issue with an expert, Leah Shepard. Leah is an assistant professor at Washington State University's Carson College of Business. She studies gender inequality and stereotyping, as well as conflict between women. Leah, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you for having me. So I want to start with the negative narrative about women in competition at work. Tell us what you know about that. Right. So I think that there is this negative narrative that would say that women have somehow problematic relationships with other women at work or that they're uniquely competitive with one another than when we see any type of competition which is normal between human beings we expect to see that especially in contexts like work that we interpret it when it's occurring among women in light of this negative stereotype. So I have research showing that the exact same identical conflict scenario is viewed differently in terms of how problematic it's going to be. So observers assume that when it's two women having

the conflict, it's going to take longer to resolve, these individuals are going to be more impacted and affected by it, and that their job satisfaction and their job performance could suffer as a result of that. So we do tend to think that there are more negative implications stemming from, you know, an identical conflict scenario when it's two women who are involved as opposed to two men or a man and a woman even. Yeah, it is funny that we use the phrase cat fight when it's two women who are involved as opposed to two men or a man and a woman even. Yeah, it is funny that we use the phrase cat fight when it's two women. It's just a fight when it's two men. Or a disagreement.

Or a disagreement. Right, yes. So what do you think's behind this? What's driving it? I think it's that competition between women violates what we would call prescriptive stereotypes. So stereotypes that prescribe certain behavior for women. So just to individual women, we already prescribe certain behavior. We want to see warm and nurturing behavior. And when we think about women's relationships, I think that that carries over.

We want to see warm, supportive behaviors occurring within those relationships. And there might be an additional prescription there because we think of women as being somewhat disadvantaged in the workforce. They're disadvantaged in the sense that they don't tend to reach high-ranking leadership roles with the same frequency that men do. There is this pay gap that we see as well. So we want to see that women are constantly supporting one another, that they're lifting one another up. Then if we do see some normal competition and conflict, it violates that prescriptive stereotype. And I think that we react negatively. So this is dangerous, right? Yes. I mean, I think why it's problematic is that it's taking something that's normal and even healthy. I think we would say that there's healthy levels of conflict and

competition that we would expect to see at work. And it's taking that and it's somehow making it problematic. It's also somewhat of a double standard. I think we see men and we expect them to be competing with one another. And so we normalize that. That's OK. And then I think also it's dangerous because it's in some ways it's shifting the responsibility for this gender inequity that we see at work to women themselves. So it's saying, well, you know, once women reach high ranking leadership roles, they should be, we're saying, oh, they should be pulling other women up behind them. And if they're not actively doing that, then are they somehow responsible for any inequality that we see? So how do women compete with each other at work? And does that look different from how we might compete with men? I don't know that it would be different. Honestly,

I think that anytime you have scarce resources, as you do in organizations, oftentimes only certain people might be able to get certain roles. Everyone can't have a leadership position. Everyone can't have the highest salary. I think you're going to see similar types of behaviors emerge in that context. I think that all that's somehow salient about it is just where it's occurring. So I think we're going to see women who are just generally competing with other women at work because they see those women as being most similar to them and therefore they're most likely competitors. Again, though, it kind of goes back to these gender stereotypes. So they might feel a bit more comfortable competing against a man at times when they think, well, for him, it's,

he's used to it. It's normal. I can be a little bit ferocious in the competition with him and it's okay. And maybe they might feel somewhat more reserved when they're competing against another woman. I can say that that's been my experience. Like I have a male colleague here and we have a lot of friendly competitions, you know, who can do, you know, more editing a month or something. We have competitions. But when I thought about it, I don't have friendly competitions with other women that I've worked with. I kind of like avoid those and that might speak to what you're talking about. So is it that you avoid the competition altogether or that it somehow feels more toxic when it does happen? Yeah, it's a little more uncomfortable. I feel like it's it is something that we avoid. You know, I feel like when I'm talking to friends, like if we're playing a game or something, we're fighting over who didn't win.

Like you won, you won that one. I didn't win. You totally did that. We're just complimenting each other and we're not as competitive. But with, you know, male colleagues or male friends, it is just more friendly, competitive. Yeah, I think that that probably goes back to some of the prescriptions around what you should be doing, how you feel you should be behaving in those relationships. And we always hear people cheering on women supporting other women. And I think that I'm sure that spills over even into our friendships where we feel like, oh, I don't want to actively criticize someone or I don't want to compete with them or even if it's just all in good fun because now I might be viewed as being unsupportive or being catty or something like that. So what's the impact of that, though?

Like women being less likely to compete with other women but maybe being more comfortable competing with men? Well, I guess it could just reinforce the stereotype. Perhaps if we, you know, if we did see more of this behavior, especially all in good fun, you know, no one's really getting deeply harmed by this, it might normalize women's competition. And then perhaps that could change the stereotype. So, yes, I would say that if women are holding themselves back from that, if they don't want to be perceived that way, not only could it have career impacts for them. I mean, if you never put yourself into the competition for something at work, then where does your career go from there? You know, you might see some career stalling. So that's one side of it. The other side of it would be that, sure, this stereotype just keeps getting reinforced. And how does the competitiveness between women affect the

quality of their relationships with one another? Well, so that's an interesting question. And that could be where we, if there is any truth to the stereotype, maybe that is where we see some of that. So just based on what we know about how women feel about competition, it could suggest that when they are required to compete and with other women, that the quality of those relationships could decrease. So we do know from research about just about gender and competition in general, that women shy away more from competition. So they seem to somehow, they don't seem to want to engage in competition as much as men do. And it's kind of unknown exactly why that is. Is it that they just don't like competition or is it that they feel

that their gender role restricts them somewhat? Like maybe we think women shouldn't compete with anybody. So it could be then that if they are in a situation where now they feel pitted against another woman, they could react quite negatively to that situation. And then perhaps that could spill over into the quality of the relationship and detract from the quality of that relationship. I want to go back. You mentioned, Leah, about scarce resources. And I'm curious whether that plays a role in the way we view female competition at work. In particular, most workplaces have fewer women than men, or at least in leadership roles. So when there's only two of you, three of you, five of you in this organization, does that mean you get pitted against one another more often? I think so. And there is some research to support this, that if women, especially if they're looking to the top of the organization and that they're seeing very few spots available to women, that they're then going to think, okay, you know, only one of us can make it to the top.

There's some research by Robin Ely, actually, at Harvard, and she had interviewed women working in law firms with either zero or just a few female partners versus a higher representation of female partners. And she noted that the relationships among the non-partners, the female lawyers who were not in those roles yet, were more strained and competitive when there were fewer women at the top. So I think that, yes, the scarcity could absolutely play in here. It would be interesting. Unfortunately, there's not as many contexts in which you can see whether the same thing happens with men when they're outnumbered, especially at

the top of the organization, because I think that that's what's really driving the effects. It's not so much just being outnumbered, you know, at any given level of the workforce. It's particularly when you're looking at leadership roles and what's the representation of women and men in those roles. So unfortunately, it's oftentimes hard to find industries where if you look at top leadership, the women reliably outnumber the men. But it would be interesting to see, you know, how does that then affect men's feelings of competitiveness or conflict with one another? So what kinds of behavior from a woman might make other women that she works with think that she's trying to compete with them? Right. So I think it's probably women's agentic behavior. And by that, I mean,

behavior that we might ascribe more to the male gender role. So, you know, behavior that is ambitious, dominant, asserting oneself, promoting oneself, and one's accomplishments. These are all being independent in how you work. These are all what we would label agentic behavior. And we know from prior research that anytime a woman adopts behavior that is somewhat more masculine, there can be what we'd call a backlash effect against that. So she might be seen as being very agentic and even highly competent because she's behaving in a way that's consistent with that. But we might see her as being somewhat cold and unlikable. And so I think that that kind of behavior could, you know, ruffle some feathers and that could happen among both female and male observers. So anyone who is regarding her could feel that way. And I think, you know, if she's somewhat unapologetic about seeking power, you know, that would be agentic behavior that might characterize competition,

I couldn't help but think of the more stereotypical cat fight behavior that we associate with women competing, you know, gossiping, trying to undermine one another. Less agentic and sort of more insidious, I think I would say. Or passive aggressive. Yeah, passive aggressive, exactly. Do you see that in your research? You know, the only research, and this is not research that I've personally conducted, but there is research that looks at boys and girls and adolescents. So for thinking about non-adults, there is plenty of research to confirm that the girls are generally more passive-aggressive in the way that they fight and compete than the boys are. But there is some research that

looks at this among adults, looks at the frequency of more assertive, kind of just, you know, overtly aggressive kinds of behaviors versus passive aggressiveness and doesn't find gender differences in among adults. So sometimes I wonder if it's, we do genuinely see those differences in youth. And so I wonder if that spills over somewhat into how we just assume that, okay, well, women are going to be passive aggressive for their whole lives and men are going to be more assertive. But it makes sense, actually, that men would have to probably adapt their behaviors somewhat as they grow into adulthood. You know, they can't, every time that someone says something negative about them or makes them angry, they can't just go and wrestle that person or punch them in the face. They probably have to

become a bit more strategic in how they lash out at that person in order to make it more socially acceptable. 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. So it sounds as if we frequently confuse competition with interpersonal problems. How do we separate those? If I'm competing with

Nicole for something and it's friendly, how do I make sure, or it's friendly from my perspective, how do I make sure that Nicole doesn't misinterpret it as a personal thing or that the world doesn't see it as a personal thing? Right. So I guess you could probably do a few things. Well, I guess I want to back up for just a moment. So if we think about the definition of these behaviors, they all somewhat fall under. They do all fall within conflict scenarios because even if there's competition and it's not personal, competition is still that I'm fighting for my interests and that might come at the expense of your interests and so at least in my academic brain we would still define that as a conflict

but we also academics also talk a lot about hey there's healthy forms of conflict when conflict is about the task at hand for example we would think that that's a healthy kind of conflict that could actually lead to better outcomes as long as it's a moderate amount. But in terms of just managing the impressions around these things, I think there's a couple of ways that we can go about this. So if, like you were saying, if you're in competition, you don't want it to be interpreted negatively. I think then having conversations with that person that you're in competition with is important. Making sure that they're evaluating what's happening the same way that you are, that they're not feeling as though there's an interpersonal conflict here, that really it's just healthy competition. You know, you might be having fun

with it and enjoying yourself. Are they? Are they also experiencing that the same way? And then I think it's about how you talk about that situation among other people as well. So are you giving the impression that there is some interpersonal hostility here, which would probably be gleaned if you were to be gossiping about that person or talking about them behind their back or ranting about situations at work, not in the presence of that person, that might be interpreted as, oh, there's more of a interpersonal hostility here. And then I think, yeah, you know, being careful in how you talk about these things with other people. But if they're the ones who are

coming to you and trying to talk about it or get you to gossip, you know, you don't want to fall into that trap. You want to be very careful in how you respond and probably say explicitly, you know, it's really no big deal and you're making it overly dramatic, maybe kind of shifting it to them a little bit and making them feel a little bit silly for dramatizing something that doesn't need to be dramatized and reassuring them that, you know, this really was just about the task at hand and there's nothing personal going on here. I do think we forget when we have conflicts or compete with others at work that there are observers that are going to both interpret for you what's going on and then either reinforce

or change that narrative. I mean, I talk sometimes about the emotional shrapnel of a conflict and that it's you can have this conflict with someone, but then everyone else is experiencing the after effects. You really have to manage those after effects so that it doesn't reinforce, reignite, you know, the conflict that you've already had. Exactly. That can be, I think, a really stressful component about it. What are other people thinking about this? Are they working together to find a solution. If you feel a woman is trying to undermine you, that you should check your own gender bias. Right. Right. If we overestimate that negativity, what can we do as women to stop doing that?

Right. To lessen that interpretation. Well, it's exactly what you said. I think it's, yes, it's do I feel this way about that? Do I have these suspicions about this other woman for valid reasons? Let me think about what's happened so far. Well, you know, has anyone else reacted this way to me? Have I had men doing the same thing? Is there some reason why I'm interpreting this somehow differently because it's another woman? I think that could actually, yeah, absolutely do a lot for us, just checking our own biases. It's always interesting to me because

in doing this research and then just having conversations with people about it, talking to them, people are always fascinated by this topic. And sometimes I'll come across women who will say things like, oh, yeah, you know, anytime I've had problems with someone at work, it's been a woman or, yeah, I don't get along with women. And then if you probe a little bit and say, really, like, can you think of times when you've not gotten along with men or, you know, who are your closest friends at work? And you'll find out that they'll say, yeah, I guess, you know, I have had conflicts with men. Or they'll say, well, yes, all my closest friends at work are all women. And, but so you're,

you're trying to, it's like trying to make the person aware of the contradictions in their own stories that at once they're saying one thing, but when they analyze it a little bit deeper, or you ask some follow-up questions that they say something completely different. And so I think that that's another thing we can do not only with ourselves, but with other people too. When we hear other people spreading this narrative, probing a little bit, asking some follow-up questions, that could help them interpret this in a different light and go, yeah, maybe I am just emphasizing or putting somehow the stories of my conflict with women are somehow more salient to me than the conflict that I've experienced with men. And I think that that could go a long way. And then I think also, I'm kind of always amazed at the willingness for people to perpetuate this stereotype because I think, well, it doesn't reflect good on anyone. Like, you know, if a woman is saying, I can't work, I don't work well

with other women or other women don't work well with me, are we basically just saying that the problem is us? So we're kind of tearing down our own group, I think, in some ways by perpetuating that. And so it's not that I'm saying, you know, women shouldn't talk about these things and that they should be silenced. Obviously, we want to talk about these things because it's healthy to do so, but trying to give it a fair representation in our minds and in how we describe it and trying to consider the other side of it about how we have felt in our relationships and conflicts with men and what kinds of conflicts do we observe between men as well at work? Do we focus on those things or do we just sort of normalize at work? You know, do we do we focus on those things

or do we just sort of normalize them and push them to the side? Leah, thank you so much for talking to us today. Thank you. When I think about my experiences competing, they mostly felt healthy and normal, except when there was an audience, which is curious with Leah's research, because I do feel like in thinking about her research, I did remember one unhealthy rivalry I had with a woman. And in retrospect, it was set up by everyone around us to be that way, in that we were both working on a project. We were both sort of thought of as our boss's favorites. And it was to see who could sort of do better with this client. And it was so toxic. I mean, I said bad things about her to other people. I'm sure she said bad things about me to other people. I went to my boss to complain about her to try to sort of like lessen her. It was all, it was really gross. I didn't like it at all. And I think it was all about the audience. Like if someone had just said, hey, here's a project, go off, do it. We would have worked well together. We liked each other. That was the crazy part. Yes. I mean, so this sounds like bad management

because it infused what should have been a collaborative and constructive relationship with all kinds of poison. Yeah. And that's a really good point, Amy, that because the resources are often meted out by a manager, whether it's attention, jobs, money, managers have a really important role in making sure that this negativity doesn't, you know, doesn't become the narrative. Right. But also letting healthy competition, like, flourish. Right. Because competition can be motivated, especially when it is self-directed, when you're not forced to compete with other people, but you, you know, you and a coworker find it motivating to have a goal, and you guys are each seeing whether you can reach that goal.

Yeah, exactly. That was fun. It kind of engaged you and probably brought you closer to your unnamed colleague. But wait, here's a really important. Who won? Yay! I did. Well, congratulations. But i don't know i feel like i think this sounds terrible but i feel like i it's harder for me to compete with other women or even to raise competition as

a thing we're going to want to do because i'm more worried about feelings and I feel like we have to support each other which is something that Leah mentioned you know what's interesting so I play Scrabble online with people but I don't play there the people I play with are all guys really and you just made me think of this and I do have female friends who also play Scrabble but I don't want to find out that one of us is better than the other wow interesting yeah I just don't want to do that I wouldn't feel good if I were the better one and I wouldn't feel good if I weren't the better one is is that just our collectivist nature that we don't want to rank ourselves against other women? Are we succumbing to the societal norm that we have to be sisters?

I don't know. I mean, if you had that. I mean, I think about when Nicole describes her competition with our male colleague. And I can sort of picture picture that like turning to a male colleague and be like i'm gonna crush you and saying that funny and i would never say that to a female colleague and we'd have to talk about it we'd have to go out to lunch we'd have to process it we'd have to agree that it was okay and then i could be like i'm gonna crush you it's okay right i still like you right like it would that drives me crazy especially especially listening to Leah's research that we can't do that. But at the same time, maybe that's right.

Do we equate losing with failure? I mean, if you hadn't won your competition, no, because it's ongoing and it's something we look at every month. And had I lost, I would have. Which you didn't. personally motivating. Like every day, it was something I kind of thought about every day, which makes me sound so lame. But I was like, I want to win and I'm going to keep pushing myself to get this done. And if I didn't, I think I would have found that motivating as well. But you'll never know. Just win every month and we'll never have to find out. That's our show. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Nicole Torres.

And I'm Amy Gallo. Our producer is Amanda Kersey. Our audio product manager is Adam Buchholz. Maureen Hoke is our supervising editor. We get technical help from Rob Eckhart. Erica Truxler makes our discussion guides. J.M. Olajars is our copy editor.