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Machiavelli's Tips for Getting Ahead at Work · What's Your Problem?

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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome to Caveat. We have a very special show
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Speaker 1: for you tonight. I'm Will Pearson, president of iHeart Podcast.
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Speaker 1: We are proud to be partners with Pushkin on this
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Speaker 1: very special podcast What's Your Problem with Jacob Goldstein. So
0:39
Speaker 1: please join me and welcoming Jacob and Stacy to the stage.
0:57
Speaker 1: Women get a raw deal at work. Men make more money,
1:00
Speaker 1: Men run almost all of the world's biggest companies, and
1:03
Speaker 1: men capture almost all of the dollars invested by venture capitalists.
1:08
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean sure, we should work to make
1:10
Speaker 1: the world more just to bring these numbers closer to balance.
1:15
Speaker 1: But but while we are doing that work, women still
1:20
Speaker 1: have to go to work every day and you know,
1:23
Speaker 1: try to get a raise, try to get promoted, try
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Speaker 1: to get the things that we all want. So while
1:29
Speaker 1: we wait for the just world to arrive, it would
1:31
Speaker 1: be nice to have a little help, you know, say,
1:35
Speaker 1: a guide book, a guide book for how women can
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Speaker 1: get ahead in the male dominated workplace. As it turns out,
1:44
Speaker 1: this book exists, and it was written more than five
1:48
Speaker 1: hundred years ago. I'm Jacob Goldstein, and this is What's
1:51
Speaker 1: Your Problem Live from Caveat on the Lower East side
1:54
Speaker 1: of Manhattan. My guest today is Stacy Vanix Smith. Thank you.
2:12
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to be here. Stacy is you are
2:18
Speaker 1: the Global economics correspondent at NPR. You're my friend. We
2:21
Speaker 1: work together at Planet Money, and most importantly for tonight's show,
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Speaker 1: you're the author of the book Machiavelli for Women, Defend
2:29
Speaker 1: your worth, grow your ambition, and win the workplace. Yes, Stacy,
2:35
Speaker 1: your problem, as I have defined it is this, how
2:38
Speaker 1: can women get ahead in a workplace that is stacked
2:41
Speaker 1: against them? Yes? I would say that's a That's a
2:45
Speaker 1: great framing for the problem. Is that? Is it good?
2:48
Speaker 1: So what I want to do is I want to
2:50
Speaker 1: talk about your own career, as you do in the book,
2:54
Speaker 1: and how some of the larger problems facing women have
2:57
Speaker 1: come up in your own career, and how if only
3:00
Speaker 1: you had known your Machiavelli, he would have helped you
3:03
Speaker 1: solve those problems. But before we get to that, let's
3:06
Speaker 1: just like give me like a little hit of Machiavelli.
3:09
Speaker 1: Just give us the like kind of Machiavelli set up
3:12
Speaker 1: for the bigger story. Right. Well, I had read Machiavelli
3:16
Speaker 1: in college as part of like a political science overview class,
3:19
Speaker 1: and I had really hated the book terribly because it's
3:23
Speaker 1: very cynical. You know, Machiavelli does not think people are great.
3:28
Speaker 1: Machiavelli is a little bit cynical about who people are
3:32
Speaker 1: and the things that motivate them. But you know, I
3:36
Speaker 1: then I went to work in the workplace and I
3:40
Speaker 1: started thinking about Machiavelli more and more. And when I
3:43
Speaker 1: went back and revisited the book, the book was a
3:45
Speaker 1: little different than I had remembered it. And the premise
3:49
Speaker 1: of the book is he's like, there are two kinds
3:51
Speaker 1: of princes, the prince, two kinds of princes. Like they're
3:54
Speaker 1: the princes who inherit their kingdoms, and he's like, for them,
3:57
Speaker 1: it's pretty cushy, things are pretty easy. Everyone's like, oh yeah,
4:00
Speaker 1: that guy's in power. And then they're the conquering princes.
4:03
Speaker 1: And he's like, for the conquering prince's difficulties abound. They're
4:05
Speaker 1: new to this territory, their powers being questioned constantly, why
4:08
Speaker 1: is them? Why not me? And I was like, that
4:12
Speaker 1: is actually a really good proxy for women and people
4:17
Speaker 1: of color and other marginalized workers in the workplace because
4:19
Speaker 1: we're in the workplace, right like, but the difficulties abound.
4:25
Speaker 1: We're getting questioned and pushed back and all that stuff.
4:27
Speaker 1: So I actually thought it was a really beautiful approach.
4:30
Speaker 1: It didn't seem cynical to me, per se. I mean,
4:33
Speaker 1: he is a little cynical about people, truly. But what
4:36
Speaker 1: interested me was that his whole idea is that you
4:41
Speaker 1: take remove emotion from situations and approach everything logically. And
4:46
Speaker 1: I actually found that very very helpful when approaching issues
4:50
Speaker 1: of unfairness in the workplace and the workplace in general,
4:55
Speaker 1: which can be kind of an emotional place. But I
4:57
Speaker 1: found it very a very useful way to start and
5:00
Speaker 1: approach issues at work. Yeah, I mean, it seems like
5:03
Speaker 1: one of the things in your book and in Matthiavelli
5:07
Speaker 1: is it's sort of the ugly truth, right like. And
5:11
Speaker 1: and this comes through in the in the book and
5:13
Speaker 1: the things you recommend, I mean as well, get to
5:15
Speaker 1: it's like, it's not dealing with the world as we
5:18
Speaker 1: want it to be, right and the solutions are not
5:21
Speaker 1: the kind of solutions we would want, right It's it's
5:25
Speaker 1: it's kind of grim but maybe effective. Yes, Well, I
5:29
Speaker 1: started looking at a lot of the research around this
5:31
Speaker 1: because I'm a big homework person. I've always been good
5:35
Speaker 1: about doing homework. So when I would come up against
5:38
Speaker 1: issues in my job and my career, for instance, I
5:41
Speaker 1: really don't like negotiating, so I would read books about
5:44
Speaker 1: how to negotiate. I would do homework, and then I
5:47
Speaker 1: would try the things in the books and they would
5:50
Speaker 1: not work. I'm one. In one instance, it was like,
5:53
Speaker 1: you know, you need to talk yourself up. You need
5:55
Speaker 1: to go into your you know, your review and basically
5:59
Speaker 1: kind of list off all of your accomplishments. And I
6:01
Speaker 1: did that and it didn't feel great, but I you know,
6:04
Speaker 1: I did the thing because it was what the book
6:06
Speaker 1: said to do, and it sure's reaction was wow, you
6:12
Speaker 1: certainly think a lot of yourself. And then I just
6:16
Speaker 1: spent the whole time trying not to cry and definitely
6:18
Speaker 1: didn't ask for a raise. I know it was it was.
6:21
Speaker 1: It was rough, but but I realized that a lot
6:24
Speaker 1: of the advice that should work, and that should work, right,
6:27
Speaker 1: it actually does work for men if you look at
6:30
Speaker 1: there's a lot of research about this stuff, which was
6:32
Speaker 1: very very helpful to me. It does work for men,
6:36
Speaker 1: but if when women do it, it does tend to
6:38
Speaker 1: backfire because people have different expectations often when they're talking
6:42
Speaker 1: to different people, and so if you do one thing
6:46
Speaker 1: and I do another, the reaction is often going to
6:50
Speaker 1: be quite different. And so I wanted to acknowledge the
6:52
Speaker 1: reality of that is that okay, No, it's not okay.
6:55
Speaker 1: Like if you go in and list off your accomplishments
6:57
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know what, Jacob, you're right, like
7:00
Speaker 1: you really have achieved a lot, and I go in
7:01
Speaker 1: and they're like, wow, you think a lot of yourself.
7:03
Speaker 1: That isn't okay, but it is the reality. So how
7:07
Speaker 1: should I deal with that? As you say, in workplace
7:10
Speaker 1: where I want to raise and you know, maybe I'm
7:13
Speaker 1: not in a position to sort of change the whole
7:15
Speaker 1: structure of the workplace. So there's this metaphor really that
7:19
Speaker 1: you use in the book to describe this double bind
7:23
Speaker 1: basically that women are in right where if you do
7:28
Speaker 1: things that would seem compelling in a man, you're looked
7:31
Speaker 1: down on, and if you don't then you don't get
7:33
Speaker 1: the raise either. So it's sort of a lose lose situation,
7:35
Speaker 1: right And you call it the hot box, yes, which
7:38
Speaker 1: apparently is a different meaning where you grew up than
7:40
Speaker 1: where I grew up, because where I grew up, you
7:44
Speaker 1: know what I'm gonna say, Where I grew up, hot
7:46
Speaker 1: boxing was smoking weed in the car with the windows up,
7:49
Speaker 1: which is not what you mean. Right in in Boise, Idaho,
7:53
Speaker 1: your hometown, the hot box is what it is. I
7:58
Speaker 1: was like a t ball term, like a baseball term.
8:00
Speaker 1: So what happened much more wholesome place very well, I
8:04
Speaker 1: don't know about that, but but yeah, so I was
8:07
Speaker 1: on a t ball team. Is really terrible at t ball,
8:10
Speaker 1: but I would get a hit every once in a while.
8:13
Speaker 1: But it's a term for if you're caught between bases essentially,
8:16
Speaker 1: so if you're like running between second and third base
8:19
Speaker 1: and the second baseman gets the ball and like basically
8:22
Speaker 1: they can throw it back and forth between second and
8:24
Speaker 1: third base and you're not out. You're in between the bases,
8:27
Speaker 1: but you're doomed. It's not good. There's no where you
8:31
Speaker 1: can go. There's no where you can go your track. Okay,
8:33
Speaker 1: so that's the I think. Did you say where you
8:35
Speaker 1: group they called it a pickle. Yeah, they called it
8:37
Speaker 1: a pickle. It's just it's lightful. It applies as well, right,
8:41
Speaker 1: so so how does this map to women in the workplace.
8:45
Speaker 1: So what happens is when women get into leadership positions,
8:49
Speaker 1: they run into this issue where the things that people
8:53
Speaker 1: like to see in leaders are people that don't care
8:56
Speaker 1: that much to what other people think, people who are decisive,
8:58
Speaker 1: people who will speak up and take credit for their actions,
9:01
Speaker 1: people who are assertive and will push back. So those
9:04
Speaker 1: are the qualities people want to see in a leader.
9:06
Speaker 1: Those are things that inspire people when it comes to
9:08
Speaker 1: leaders and those line up almost exactly with the qualities
9:11
Speaker 1: people also admire in men. The problem is when you
9:14
Speaker 1: are a woman and you do those things the qualities
9:17
Speaker 1: that people associate with a quote unquote good woman, and
9:20
Speaker 1: those are things like nurturing, humble, compassionate, sympathetic, supportive. Those
9:25
Speaker 1: are all really beautiful qualities also, but you can't really
9:30
Speaker 1: use them in a leadership position all the time. So
9:34
Speaker 1: when women get into leadership positions, they're in a situation,
9:37
Speaker 1: the hot box, the pickle where if they sort of
9:43
Speaker 1: behave in traditionally more feminine ways, they are considered bad leaders.
9:48
Speaker 1: Right if you're compassionate and supportive and gentle and kind,
9:52
Speaker 1: that doesn't work as a leader. But then when women
9:55
Speaker 1: will try to display more masculine traits, they will be
9:58
Speaker 1: very deeply disliked. And you see this a lot of
10:01
Speaker 1: times with female politicians, like very kind of pronounced cases.
10:04
Speaker 1: So you end up in a situation where if you
10:08
Speaker 1: kind of can't. So I feel like, for me, this
10:11
Speaker 1: was like the really big central idea that I took
10:16
Speaker 1: from the book because it just framed so much and
10:18
Speaker 1: it seems so pernicious. But then what I found really
10:22
Speaker 1: interesting was these ways you enumerate of not solving the
10:27
Speaker 1: larger problem but dealing with it right, of how to
10:30
Speaker 1: live in this unjust world as a professional woman basically.
10:33
Speaker 1: And so I thought we could walk through some of
10:36
Speaker 1: the moments from your career that you talk about in
10:39
Speaker 1: the book, from before you had you know, the wisdom
10:41
Speaker 1: of Machiavelli at your fingertips, and sort of walk through
10:44
Speaker 1: what happened, and then you know what would Mackievelli do
10:47
Speaker 1: basically or have done. So there's one you talk about
10:51
Speaker 1: where it's relatively early in your career and you find
10:54
Speaker 1: out a male colleague with a similar job is making
10:58
Speaker 1: a lot more money than you, Like, tell me tell
11:00
Speaker 1: me that one. Yes, So I found out. So this
11:03
Speaker 1: is when I had first become a reporter, and I
11:05
Speaker 1: was very very excited to become a reporter. I had
11:07
Speaker 1: been a producer and it can be kind of a
11:09
Speaker 1: hard jump to make. Really wanted to make it. And
11:11
Speaker 1: I found out I was a reporter. And shortly after that,
11:17
Speaker 1: a male colleague was promoted and he, I think four
11:20
Speaker 1: or five years less experience than I did. And I
11:23
Speaker 1: found out through a series of events that he was
11:26
Speaker 1: making eighteen thousand more dollars a year than I was.
11:31
Speaker 1: And I just the thing that kept going through my
11:34
Speaker 1: head is that's a car. That's a car every year,
11:39
Speaker 1: it's a car a year, and he gets a car.
11:44
Speaker 1: It's like terrible, It's like reverse. So I was really
11:49
Speaker 1: beside myself and I made an appointment with the boss.
11:52
Speaker 1: I forced myself. I mean I was, I was just
11:53
Speaker 1: I was so embarrassed because I had actually really tried
11:56
Speaker 1: to negotiate my salary when I had gotten this this
11:59
Speaker 1: title bump, and I had tried everything, all the things,
12:03
Speaker 1: and so I really thought that I had gotten this
12:05
Speaker 1: great salary, and then I found out that this kid,
12:09
Speaker 1: he wasn't really a kid, but this this person, why
12:11
Speaker 1: less experience? And I was had just sort of in
12:14
Speaker 1: my in my mind Waltzton for like twenty grand more,
12:17
Speaker 1: and I was just devastated. So I walked into my
12:21
Speaker 1: to my boss's office and you know, fuming and lay
12:27
Speaker 1: this out and it's kind of like, you know, jac Hughes.
12:30
Speaker 1: I was like, I know, like I know what you're paying.
12:32
Speaker 1: And he was very, very shocked and rattled. And I
12:37
Speaker 1: remember this so clearly because he looked at me and
12:39
Speaker 1: was like, well, what do you want? And I had
12:43
Speaker 1: no idea, no idea. I didn't think at all before
12:46
Speaker 1: I went into his office. I was I was super upset,
12:49
Speaker 1: which I had every right to be, and I was
12:51
Speaker 1: really angry, and I didn't think of what I wanted.
12:52
Speaker 1: I just wanted to like confront him and be like,
12:55
Speaker 1: you are terrible and I am right. And that did happen.
13:01
Speaker 1: And I when I first started reading Machiavelli, I brought
13:04
Speaker 1: my copy with the Prince for you. It's very beat up. Yes,
13:09
Speaker 1: I will, I will. He's quite eloquent. But I remember
13:14
Speaker 1: just I was like, oh my god. It was like
13:17
Speaker 1: one of those moments when I looked back and I
13:18
Speaker 1: have kind of all this power in that moment I
13:21
Speaker 1: had all this knowledge, had all this power. If I
13:23
Speaker 1: had been more thoughtful about how to approach that moment,
13:26
Speaker 1: then I really could have used that moment in a
13:30
Speaker 1: way that would have I mean, I did get a
13:33
Speaker 1: raise because of the sort of terrible confrontation, but I
13:37
Speaker 1: could have used it in a much more productive way.
13:39
Speaker 1: So you're still at that moment, you know, in the
13:42
Speaker 1: hot box, right, You're still living inside these world of
13:45
Speaker 1: these gender expectations that screw women at work basically, So
13:50
Speaker 1: are there particular moves you could have made in that
13:54
Speaker 1: setting where you had power, where you had this moment,
13:57
Speaker 1: when you could negotiate from where that would have sort
13:59
Speaker 1: of optimized it kind of in a Machiavellian way. Yeah.
14:02
Speaker 1: So what I wish I would have done is I
14:04
Speaker 1: think about it a little bit strategically. It's like, Okay, well,
14:08
Speaker 1: I know that you know, this Ralph is making twenty
14:12
Speaker 1: thousand dollars more than I am, so I also know
14:15
Speaker 1: that I have more experience, so I can walk in
14:17
Speaker 1: and say, listen, you know, I was really really excited
14:19
Speaker 1: to be promoted into this position and you had you know,
14:25
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that you you took this chance on me,
14:27
Speaker 1: and I know that's a big deal, and I know
14:29
Speaker 1: that you know weren't sure if if it would work out.
14:32
Speaker 1: But I think I've been a really strong performer now
14:34
Speaker 1: that I have established myself in this job and this
14:37
Speaker 1: is a fair workplace. I know. I think my salary
14:39
Speaker 1: really needs to be adjusted. I know what this workplace
14:43
Speaker 1: tends to pay for the kind of work I'm doing,
14:44
Speaker 1: and at the level that I'm working, I think a
14:46
Speaker 1: salary of X would be more appropriate. What do you think?
14:49
Speaker 1: And I think that would have been way better than
14:52
Speaker 1: what I did, which got me a ray. I didn't
14:55
Speaker 1: get all the way to match my mail colleague salary.
14:58
Speaker 1: I think I got, Like I think I got a
14:59
Speaker 1: raise of like ten thousand dollars or something like that,
15:02
Speaker 1: but I think I could have gotten more than twenty
15:04
Speaker 1: thousand dollars by kind of making a logical case, and
15:06
Speaker 1: I didn't. There are things you recommend in the book
15:09
Speaker 1: that you're not saying now, and like I don't know
15:12
Speaker 1: if it's because it's uncomfortable, Like you say in the
15:14
Speaker 1: book that in a negotiation like that, women should smile,
15:16
Speaker 1: which seems like a terrible I'm not going to say.
15:18
Speaker 1: I don't like it's in the book though, now, like
15:20
Speaker 1: you're you're saying all the nice things now because it's
15:23
Speaker 1: like sure, but like let's get get to the gnarly
15:27
Speaker 1: machiavellium part. Okay, the gnarly macifellium, Like smile is like
15:30
Speaker 1: a terrible thing you're not supposed to tell with a smile, right, Okay, Yeah,
15:35
Speaker 1: So it's like smile. People tend to respond better to
15:38
Speaker 1: women in negotiations when they bring up like a social connection.
15:41
Speaker 1: So it's like, oh, hey, how's it going, how is
15:44
Speaker 1: your trip to grease? Um? You smile? You don't know
15:48
Speaker 1: adversarial behavior. You keep things very positive. People really like
15:52
Speaker 1: it when women are positive and supportive and express empathy.
15:58
Speaker 1: So it's like, oh, you know, I know, I totally
16:00
Speaker 1: understand that you're dealing with a you know, a butt
16:02
Speaker 1: like a really tight budget and that's really stressful. I
16:05
Speaker 1: totally get that, you know, that kind of thing, um,
16:09
Speaker 1: and that I was reading all this stuff in these
16:12
Speaker 1: studies and I was like, oh my god, but I said,
16:15
Speaker 1: I remember I jon C. Williams wrote the scrap book
16:18
Speaker 1: What Works for Women at Work, and she was expressing
16:20
Speaker 1: to me we were talking about what to do if
16:21
Speaker 1: you're interrupted, and she was presenting like all these really
16:24
Speaker 1: terrible scenarios like saying like oh yeah, you know, Jacob,
16:27
Speaker 1: I I really you know, or if your ideas get
16:30
Speaker 1: stolen into meeting. But you know, I was like, this
16:33
Speaker 1: is really awkward. That's awful, and she was like, no,
16:35
Speaker 1: it really is. And she's like a lot of people,
16:38
Speaker 1: you know, don't want to look at this stuff. She's like,
16:40
Speaker 1: but you know, I don't necessarily want to smile. She
16:44
Speaker 1: was also talking about like wearing dresses more. One of
16:45
Speaker 1: the things she did was she would dress in a
16:47
Speaker 1: more feminine wake. She said she was brought a lot
16:50
Speaker 1: of masculine energy to work. She was a lawyer, and
16:52
Speaker 1: she said she learned she wore more dresses and I
16:55
Speaker 1: was like, that doesn't feel great. She's like, listen, you
16:59
Speaker 1: have to do what's right for you. But she's like,
17:00
Speaker 1: I think, you know, behaving as you know, as if
17:04
Speaker 1: you're living in the world as it ought to be
17:06
Speaker 1: at great personal sacrifice and retiring with less money than
17:09
Speaker 1: you should have. She's like, I can't support that. She's like,
17:12
Speaker 1: so at least she's like, I think you should be
17:14
Speaker 1: honest and Machiavelli was very much all about that. He
17:17
Speaker 1: talks a lot about you know, the way in which
17:21
Speaker 1: we live and the way we ought to live. Are
17:23
Speaker 1: things so wide asunder, is what he says. But you know,
17:27
Speaker 1: it's like the way that we should be and the
17:29
Speaker 1: way things are are not the same, and so you
17:32
Speaker 1: have to navigate, which is different for everybody, obviously, but
17:36
Speaker 1: you have to navigate the situation. So, yeah, that your
17:38
Speaker 1: negotiation might go better if you smile more, Your negotiation
17:41
Speaker 1: might go better. If you dress in a more corporate way,
17:44
Speaker 1: your negotiation might go better. If you emphasize your social
17:46
Speaker 1: connection with somebody, Your negotiation might go better, if you're
17:49
Speaker 1: really understanding and express empathy for the issues that they
17:52
Speaker 1: might be dealing with. It's a little stomach turney, yes,
17:56
Speaker 1: but I did make a promise to myself that I
17:59
Speaker 1: would lay the stuff out and be honest and at
18:01
Speaker 1: least give people the tools so that they weren't doing
18:04
Speaker 1: what I was doing, which is reading all this advice
18:06
Speaker 1: and trying it and like having you totally backfire and
18:09
Speaker 1: be like, but I did the thing in the book.
18:11
Speaker 1: At least I was like, well, at least you give
18:12
Speaker 1: people options, So yeah, that is that's the ugly truth.
18:19
Speaker 1: Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. I understand how difficult
18:23
Speaker 1: it must be for you to ask these kinds of questions.
18:26
Speaker 1: So I really, I really like you. We're gonna take
18:31
Speaker 1: a quick break. If you're in the audience here, you
18:32
Speaker 1: can get a drink. If you're listening at home, you
18:35
Speaker 1: can have an ad. We're back live from caveat in
18:48
Speaker 1: New York City. I want to do another kind of
18:57
Speaker 1: big idea and another story together, as we do, like
19:00
Speaker 1: a story and an idea. Yeah, yeah, and just to
19:02
Speaker 1: plant them together. Well, I'll say today at the office,
19:05
Speaker 1: somebody who's not here tonight, she couldn't come tonight, but
19:07
Speaker 1: she's like, oh my god, you're interviewing Stacy Vani Smith.
19:10
Speaker 1: And then she showed me a picture on her phone
19:14
Speaker 1: of a page from your book. She liked it so
19:16
Speaker 1: much she took a picture of it. I do not
19:17
Speaker 1: have to buy it, apparently, but enough to take a
19:19
Speaker 1: picture of it in the books, she said, she put
19:21
Speaker 1: on her Amazon leash list halfway there. So the page
19:26
Speaker 1: was about something called the Cinderella syndrome, or that you
19:31
Speaker 1: call the Cinderella syndrome, or that is called. And there's
19:33
Speaker 1: also a particular story in the book that I think
19:37
Speaker 1: from your own life that kind of illuminates the syndrome.
19:41
Speaker 1: So the story from the book is when you were
19:44
Speaker 1: trying to get promoted from producer to reporter. So can
19:47
Speaker 1: you sort of tell that story and then talk about,
19:50
Speaker 1: you know, how it explains the Cinderella syndrome. Yes, and
19:53
Speaker 1: then maybe we can get to the macavillin solution. Yes. Absolutely.
19:56
Speaker 1: So I was working as a producer at the time.
19:59
Speaker 1: I was an assistant producer, so I was starting out
20:01
Speaker 1: and I really really wanted to be on the air.
20:03
Speaker 1: It was the thing I had always I wanted to
20:04
Speaker 1: be a reporter, and I would I would report stories
20:09
Speaker 1: for the I was working at Marketplace at the time,
20:12
Speaker 1: and I was working in the middle of the night.
20:14
Speaker 1: I was working the Graveyard Ship, so it was it
20:15
Speaker 1: was really rough hours, but I would stay up and
20:18
Speaker 1: I would report stories and I would kind of you
20:20
Speaker 1: could do little freelance stories if you were a producer,
20:22
Speaker 1: and so I was doing this quite regularly, and every
20:24
Speaker 1: time a reporter job came up, I would apply, and
20:27
Speaker 1: I applied to like six or seven of them over
20:29
Speaker 1: a period of four years, and I just never even
20:32
Speaker 1: got an interview, even though my work was on the
20:34
Speaker 1: air pretty regularly, so they had a feeling of what
20:36
Speaker 1: I could do. I wasn't totally unqualified to be applying.
20:40
Speaker 1: And I went to the my boss, like the head
20:45
Speaker 1: of the company, and I was like, yeah, I just
20:48
Speaker 1: I just applied for like an eighth job and I'm
20:50
Speaker 1: not I'm not even getting interviews, and I'm just wondering
20:53
Speaker 1: what's going on. And he was like, well, you know,
20:58
Speaker 1: these jobs are super competitive, and you know your stuff
21:00
Speaker 1: is solid, but it lacks specialness. And I was like,
21:04
Speaker 1: I still remember specialness because that's not a word, but
21:07
Speaker 1: I really internalized that. I was like, oh, my stuff
21:12
Speaker 1: is not special enough. And of course, looking back at
21:16
Speaker 1: that through the lens of Machiavelli, I see it quite differently,
21:18
Speaker 1: but at the time I just believed him. I was like, Okay,
21:21
Speaker 1: he does not think my work is special enough. So
21:23
Speaker 1: I worked for like eight months and saved and saved
21:26
Speaker 1: and saved and saved money, and then I went in
21:27
Speaker 1: to quit my job. I was going to quit and
21:30
Speaker 1: I was gonna be a radio freelancer, which I did.
21:32
Speaker 1: So I went in to quit the job and in
21:34
Speaker 1: the meeting where I was quitting, he was like, well,
21:39
Speaker 1: why don't we put you on a reporting contract? And
21:42
Speaker 1: I was like, well, wait, I don't know if you
21:46
Speaker 1: remember this, but I'm not that special. And I was
21:52
Speaker 1: so puzzled, and I was like great, you know, I
21:54
Speaker 1: was thrilled. So I signed the contract. And of course,
21:56
Speaker 1: looking back, I was like, I was a producer in
21:58
Speaker 1: the middle of the night. That is a really hard
22:00
Speaker 1: job to fill. A reporting job is much easier to fill.
22:04
Speaker 1: If he hired me for a reporting job, he would
22:07
Speaker 1: be vacating a slot that was it's for the morning show.
22:10
Speaker 1: So it's it's a really it's a hard job. It's
22:13
Speaker 1: a demanding job, and it's a really hard job to fill.
22:15
Speaker 1: It was just making a problem for him. That is
22:18
Speaker 1: why he was like, that's why I wasn't getting interviews.
22:21
Speaker 1: It had nothing to do with my ability as a reporter.
22:24
Speaker 1: This happens. But this kind of thing actually happens to women,
22:27
Speaker 1: especially quite a bit. And so just what is the
22:30
Speaker 1: Cinderella syndrome? So that's the story. What's the Cinderella So
22:33
Speaker 1: the Cinderella syndrome is from the Cinderella's story. Um and
22:37
Speaker 1: in the story there's you know, Cinderella is trying to
22:39
Speaker 1: go to the ball, and she asks the evil stepmother like,
22:41
Speaker 1: I want to go to the ball. And I go
22:43
Speaker 1: to the ball. Evil summers like, totally go to the ball.
22:46
Speaker 1: We just need you to, you know, clean the banister,
22:49
Speaker 1: sweep the chimney, all this stuff. And Cinderella is like, okay,
22:52
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it. And so she cleans the banister
22:55
Speaker 1: and sweeps the everything, and then she's like, can I
22:58
Speaker 1: go And the stem was like, no, you don't. Yeah,
23:02
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. It just feels you're just yeah, she just
23:04
Speaker 1: seemed like ball material. Um so. But but how this
23:08
Speaker 1: relates is women will often get stuck in this situation.
23:11
Speaker 1: And whereas men will sometimes get promoted and often get
23:14
Speaker 1: promoted on their potential, women will get promoted on the
23:18
Speaker 1: work that they've done and they'll be asked to prove
23:21
Speaker 1: themselves over and over and over again. And it just
23:24
Speaker 1: has to do with again, unconscious biases and where people
23:26
Speaker 1: see certain things. It's like, you know, I think he
23:29
Speaker 1: might be a really good host, which isn't necessarily going
23:33
Speaker 1: to occur for and this also happens with people of
23:36
Speaker 1: color and other marginalized groups. Just like they don't look
23:39
Speaker 1: like a host or people are just I don't know,
23:41
Speaker 1: it's my gut feeling. A lot of the stuff happens
23:43
Speaker 1: with gut feelings. So a lot of times, especially with women,
23:47
Speaker 1: they'll be asked to do you prove themselves over and
23:50
Speaker 1: over and over again, as I was proving myself over
23:53
Speaker 1: and over and over again, and yet getting told different
23:56
Speaker 1: things that are not necessarily true, like well, well, just
23:59
Speaker 1: put in a little more time, try to make your
24:01
Speaker 1: work a little more special. It had nothing to do
24:03
Speaker 1: with that. It was something else entirely, and yeah, so okay,
24:07
Speaker 1: so that's the problem. What's the Machiavellian solution. Well, the
24:13
Speaker 1: Mackiewellian solution, I think in my case would have been
24:16
Speaker 1: to recognize that me leaving my job is going to
24:18
Speaker 1: make a problem. So to come to my boss with
24:21
Speaker 1: a solution and say, listen, you know kneel over here,
24:25
Speaker 1: I know is really eager for promotion. I think he'd
24:27
Speaker 1: be really great in this job. Why don't you put
24:30
Speaker 1: him in that job for six months. He would be great,
24:32
Speaker 1: he'd be trained up, he could fill in for me,
24:34
Speaker 1: and then I would, you know, get to be a
24:36
Speaker 1: reporter and just basically anticipate the problem, see it from
24:39
Speaker 1: his point of view, and solve it while proposing the
24:42
Speaker 1: thing that I want. I think that would be. It
24:44
Speaker 1: seems less unappealing than the other All the solutions are unappealing.
24:49
Speaker 1: That's true. They're most interesting when they're unappealing, they're most interestingly.
24:53
Speaker 1: There were those were really really hard ones to write.
24:56
Speaker 1: Some of them really were. Did people get mad at
24:59
Speaker 1: you for writing a book where you tell women to smile? Yeah? Yeah,
25:05
Speaker 1: I mean some people were upset at some of the advice.
25:08
Speaker 1: I mean not a lot of the advice is just
25:11
Speaker 1: more practical, like do a lot of research, find out
25:13
Speaker 1: what people in. So a lot of it is not stomachtorney,
25:17
Speaker 1: but some of it. The most stomach atorney You'll really
25:19
Speaker 1: like this, Jacob, was when I did the motherhood chapter.
25:23
Speaker 1: This was probably the most surprising research I did in
25:26
Speaker 1: the book. Was the penalty for motherhood, the discrimination that
25:29
Speaker 1: mother's experience. It is insane. The pay gap between women
25:33
Speaker 1: who have children and women who don't is bigger than
25:37
Speaker 1: the gender pay gap. And women they when they would
25:41
Speaker 1: have identical resumes with like a woman's you know, women's name,
25:45
Speaker 1: and one of the resumes indicated children like pta and
25:48
Speaker 1: special interests or something. Women would be recommended for lower
25:51
Speaker 1: salaries by fifteen percent, and people would look at their
25:56
Speaker 1: resumes far more critically as far as um and be
25:59
Speaker 1: much more inclined to impose harsher penalties for things like lateness.
26:03
Speaker 1: So automatically there's just a feeling of her real job
26:08
Speaker 1: isn't this job is what comes up? And so of
26:10
Speaker 1: course what we want is to solve the underlying problem.
26:13
Speaker 1: It needs to be solved. We want that not to
26:15
Speaker 1: be a problem. But there's also this sort of in
26:16
Speaker 1: the meantime problem what do we do about what do
26:20
Speaker 1: we do about it? Right? There are mothers every day
26:23
Speaker 1: trying to get a job, trying to get promoted. The
26:25
Speaker 1: world is still broken in this way. Like what's the
26:27
Speaker 1: Maciewellian solution. Macuefellian solution is I called everyone about this
26:33
Speaker 1: because I was like, I don't want to put this
26:34
Speaker 1: in the book. Basically it said, you know before you know,
26:38
Speaker 1: if you know you're you're before you have your baby,
26:41
Speaker 1: talk to your boss, make really concrete plans. Basically, act
26:44
Speaker 1: like you're going on vacation, even if you're not even
26:46
Speaker 1: sure you're going to come back. Or how you're going
26:47
Speaker 1: to deal with childcare. Just be like, okay, great, so
26:49
Speaker 1: I'll be back in April and I'll pick up this
26:51
Speaker 1: project right where I left off and just kind of
26:53
Speaker 1: don't let them what they call mommy track you. And
26:56
Speaker 1: it's a really real I mean, the research is insane.
26:58
Speaker 1: The other thing was just oh, oh, Jacobus, you put
27:04
Speaker 1: it in there. I know, I did, I know, but
27:07
Speaker 1: you're you basically, don't talk about your baby. You come
27:11
Speaker 1: back to work, you just don't mention the baby, like,
27:15
Speaker 1: don't show pictures. I mean, it's not pretty. And I
27:19
Speaker 1: really hated writing that, because it's a beautiful thing. You've
27:22
Speaker 1: got a baby. You should shout it from the rooftops.
27:25
Speaker 1: That's wonderful, the circle of life. And yet people will
27:29
Speaker 1: use it as an excuse not to promote you, to
27:31
Speaker 1: pull you off important projects. And so yeah, my two
27:34
Speaker 1: major pieces of advice from the research were really painful.
27:38
Speaker 1: It was basically, don't talk about your baby and then
27:41
Speaker 1: work as if you do not have a baby, which
27:44
Speaker 1: it's really rough, but I think it maybe highlights the
27:48
Speaker 1: gravity of the problem too. How have people reacted to
27:51
Speaker 1: that part of the book. The people who have talked
27:55
Speaker 1: to me about it. Who have children have actually sort
27:58
Speaker 1: of agreed. I did have. Actually that's not entirely true.
28:02
Speaker 1: One woman was like, no, I brought my baby to work.
28:04
Speaker 1: She's like, nothing is going to change if people basically
28:06
Speaker 1: hide the fact they have children. She's like, your book
28:09
Speaker 1: is going to keep people back, like instead of sort
28:13
Speaker 1: of pushing the issue forward. And she made a really
28:15
Speaker 1: good point. And she had said she in her workplace
28:18
Speaker 1: had made a real point of bringing her baby to work,
28:21
Speaker 1: and eventually she'd even left her office because she said
28:24
Speaker 1: she'd still run into so many issues and started started
28:26
Speaker 1: her own business. But she was like, nothing's going to
28:30
Speaker 1: change if yeah, And so there is some tension right
28:34
Speaker 1: where if you like are dealing if you're just living
28:37
Speaker 1: in the bad fighting it better, Yes, if you're navigating
28:42
Speaker 1: inside of a croup. But this is the This is
28:44
Speaker 1: the complication of living in a system that, as you said,
28:47
Speaker 1: in certain ways is broken, is that you have to
28:51
Speaker 1: work in it and try to change it, and that
28:55
Speaker 1: is enormously difficult. At the same time, you're just like
28:58
Speaker 1: trying to pay your gas bill, you know. So it's
29:01
Speaker 1: there is it is a painful thing, and I think
29:04
Speaker 1: it's a painful thing to experience and to talk about.
29:08
Speaker 1: There's a great maybe the opposite of Machuveli, but Eckert
29:13
Speaker 1: Totlee has had this piece of advice that I remember
29:15
Speaker 1: listening to and I was like, that's very Machiavellian, Whereas like,
29:18
Speaker 1: there are three sane responses to a difficult situation. You
29:21
Speaker 1: change the situation. If you can't change the situation, you
29:24
Speaker 1: leave the situation. If you can't change or leave the situation,
29:28
Speaker 1: you accept the situation. It was like, that is actually
29:31
Speaker 1: very Machiavelian. It's like, this is the situation. What are
29:35
Speaker 1: you going to do? Like? What are the actions you
29:37
Speaker 1: can take? And what I really appreciated about Machubli was
29:40
Speaker 1: like ways forward. And I think I had sort of
29:42
Speaker 1: been spinning in the outrage and the herd and the
29:46
Speaker 1: shame and the unfairness and all that for a long time,
29:50
Speaker 1: and I think Macubeli kind of showed me a way
29:52
Speaker 1: out coming up the lightning round. After this break, Now
30:08
Speaker 1: that to the show. Now it's time for the lightning Okay,
30:11
Speaker 1: all right? What happens in the lightning round? Do I
30:16
Speaker 1: ask you questions and you answer them quickly but in
30:19
Speaker 1: rapid fashion, Okay, okay, I guess that's kind of in
30:22
Speaker 1: the title. What would Machiavelli think of Machiavelli for women?
30:30
Speaker 1: I think he would be psyched that he was still
30:33
Speaker 1: being talked about. Yeah, and I don't think he would
30:36
Speaker 1: care that. I don't think you would be like, well,
30:38
Speaker 1: I don't want women in power. I think he'd be like, great,
30:40
Speaker 1: they're talking about like in more people potentially buying my book.
30:43
Speaker 1: I think he would be excited. That's a fairy Machiavelli
30:48
Speaker 1: in response, what's one thing a boss or manager can
30:52
Speaker 1: do to make the kinds of problems you talk about
30:54
Speaker 1: in the book a little better? Put like systems in place.
30:59
Speaker 1: I think, like I said, a lot of the gut
31:01
Speaker 1: feeling stuff is where a lot of these problems come in.
31:03
Speaker 1: So making kind of a system, like Okay, when we're
31:06
Speaker 1: hiring for this position, we're going to like take names
31:08
Speaker 1: off resumes first, or we're only going to look at
31:10
Speaker 1: candidates that have like X, Y and Z, or we're
31:13
Speaker 1: not going to look at these things. Those things can
31:15
Speaker 1: kind of help avoid some of the biases that come up.
31:20
Speaker 1: What's your favorite thing about Machiavelli the man, the person,
31:24
Speaker 1: not the writer. M I think what I loved about
31:29
Speaker 1: Machiavelli was when I started reading about his life. He
31:32
Speaker 1: actually wrote The Prince at a time when he lost
31:34
Speaker 1: everything that he had. He was a very impressive career.
31:37
Speaker 1: He was basically the secretary of State for Florence for
31:40
Speaker 1: a while, was like met Kings, and but then power
31:43
Speaker 1: changed hands and they, like the new leader, like took
31:47
Speaker 1: all his money away from him and put him in
31:48
Speaker 1: jail and tortured him and exiled him. And that was
31:51
Speaker 1: where he wrote The Prince. And I mean, that's like
31:54
Speaker 1: a weird thing to have it to be my favorite
31:55
Speaker 1: thing about Machiavelli, but I think it humanized him for me. Yeah,
32:00
Speaker 1: you described The Prince as a as a cover letter,
32:03
Speaker 1: right for a job, and he never got that job, right,
32:06
Speaker 1: He never sort of made it back to power, so
32:08
Speaker 1: he held right. And I'm curious, like, did he need
32:13
Speaker 1: Machiavelli for Machiavelli And if so, like what would it say.
32:17
Speaker 1: I mean, he was in a situation, so he basically
32:19
Speaker 1: wrote The Prince. And in the beginning of the Prince
32:21
Speaker 1: there's this weird apology treatise to the people who basically
32:25
Speaker 1: taken everything from him and tortured him, and he was like, Oh,
32:27
Speaker 1: you're amazing, and here are just my crappy ideas. But
32:31
Speaker 1: I'm just going to present you the very best things
32:33
Speaker 1: I've learned from all my millions of years of experience.
32:35
Speaker 1: Take it or leave it was Lorenzo de Medici never
32:37
Speaker 1: even looked at it. Apparently never looked at it, and
32:40
Speaker 1: Machiavelli did not ever get back to sort of the
32:43
Speaker 1: career that he had or the life that he had.
32:48
Speaker 1: I think the thing the piece of advice that I
32:51
Speaker 1: would give him at that point, because then he did
32:53
Speaker 1: start like writing plays and poems and stuff. It was
32:55
Speaker 1: just to let go of that thing. I don't think
32:59
Speaker 1: he could have gotten back there. So I think I
33:02
Speaker 1: would have encouraged him to maybe let go of his
33:05
Speaker 1: old life and like maybe look for something new a little. So,
33:10
Speaker 1: what's one piece of advice you'd give to someone trying
33:12
Speaker 1: to solve a hard problem, Maybe to get curious. I
33:17
Speaker 1: think that's the biggest lesson I've learned, so, like, instead
33:19
Speaker 1: of getting angry or afraid, which are kind of my
33:24
Speaker 1: two go to responses in situations, especially if it feels
33:27
Speaker 1: like a lot at steak, to kind of just get
33:30
Speaker 1: curious and like explore a little because I think that
33:33
Speaker 1: can open your mind up and you can find solutions. So,
33:36
Speaker 1: now that you've shown how useful Machiavelli is for women,
33:40
Speaker 1: what other domains should we be using Machiavelli in. I mean,
33:46
Speaker 1: I don't think there's like a lack of machiavellianness in
33:49
Speaker 1: the world. I know someone was like, are you going
33:51
Speaker 1: to do Macchiavelli for babies, because you know in New
33:54
Speaker 1: York you'd like, I don't know. I feel like babies
33:57
Speaker 1: are super Macchiavellian already. They don't need a book. They're
34:01
Speaker 1: very good about that. Who needs Machiavelli? I mean maybe
34:04
Speaker 1: the climate needs Machiavelli. I think, like some of thee
34:09
Speaker 1: the things that are important but difficult to tackle, I
34:12
Speaker 1: think are good. It's a good domain for Machiavelli. Say
34:16
Speaker 1: that's the end of the lightning round. All right, that's it,
34:18
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Thanks Jacob Stacy Vannick. Smith is
34:31
Speaker 1: the author of Machiavelli for Women. Defend your worth, grow
34:34
Speaker 1: your ambition, and win the workplace. Thanks very much to
34:45
Speaker 1: our sponsors Geico and ZIP Recruiter Special Thanks also to
34:49
Speaker 1: Robert Smith, the whole staff here at Caveat also to
34:53
Speaker 1: Edith Russelo, Carly Migliori, Nicole Morano, and Maggie Taylor. At
34:56
Speaker 1: Pushkin and at iHeart. Thanks to Kathy Callahan, Mattie Aaron's,
35:01
Speaker 1: Will Pearson, Christine Flipsy, Jawara Parker, Allison Wright, Nathan Otoski,
35:08
Speaker 1: and Connal Burn. I'm Jacob Goldstein and we'll be back
35:11
Speaker 1: next week with another episode of What's Your Problem Beautiful