Latest / Women Disrupting Tech / Designing The Workplace Women in Tech Actually Want with Tiffany Aude and Yoana Leusin | Ep. 132

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Designing The Workplace Women in Tech Actually Want with Tiffany Aude and Yoana Leusin | Ep. 132 · Women Disrupting Tech

• 0:10
  Welcome to Women Disrupting Tech.
• 0:13
  My name is dear Kanupkas, and on this podcast, I give the women
• 0:16
  who work in tech the platform they need to inspire and empower
• 0:20
  each other. Join me on a journey into the
• 0:23
  world of entrepreneurship, funding biases, and role models
• 0:28
  to discover the strategies for success in the tech industry.
• 0:32
  In other words, how women can disrupt tech.
• 0:36
  Are you ready to listen? Hey, welcome back to Women
• 0:45
  Disrupting Tech and thank you for tuning in to episode 132.
• 0:51
  Did you know that when companies use clear and objective criteria
• 0:55
  to promote people, they become 75% more likely to promote
• 1:00
  women? That's not because women
• 1:04
  suddenly perform better, but because promotion decisions move
• 1:09
  away from perception and to work evidence.
• 1:12
  It's one of the key insights from my conversation with
• 1:15
  Tiffany Odd and Joanna Leosin. They're the founders of Empower,
• 1:21
  a coaching platform for ambitious women in male
• 1:24
  dominated industries. And it's fair to say that this
• 1:28
  episode challenges some familiar assumptions about how careers
• 1:32
  are built and who rises inside tech companies.
• 1:36
  In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, we talk about
• 1:40
  what it really takes to build a workplace where women can
• 1:43
  thrive. We explore why so many women
• 1:46
  leave tech before reaching leadership, what leaders need to
• 1:50
  rethink in terms of requirements and incentives, and how mindset
• 1:55
  plays a critical role in whether women step into leadership or
• 2:00
  step back. We also talk about the role that
• 2:03
  allies played in Tiffany's and Johanna's careers and what
• 2:07
  meaningful allyship actually looks like in practice.
• 2:12
  So when you're ready to listen and learn how to design the
• 2:16
  workplace that women in tech actually want, please welcome to
• 2:21
  Women Disrupting Tech Tiffany OTT and Johanna Liuchin.
• 2:25
  Johanna Liuchin, Tiffany OTT Welcome to Women Disrupting
• 2:29
  Tech. Good to have you Question.
• 2:33
  I always ask at the start is how you got into your current job or
• 2:36
  current position and Tiffany, maybe you start.
• 2:41
  Yeah. Well, we have a lot in common
• 2:44
  already. And what you'll see on our CVS
• 2:48
  is we both have psychology backgrounds.
• 2:50
  We've both been in recruitment for the last eight years working
• 2:54
  in sales performance management. We're both ICF trained coaches,
• 3:00
  but obviously we had very different paths like leading up
• 3:04
  to there. So for myself, I'm so I'm
• 3:08
  actually from France originally. I moved to the UK for my studies
• 3:11
  where I did psychology and I worked throughout my university
• 3:15
  time in different jobs, a lot of jobs in hospitality and I was
• 3:20
  working with mainly men essentially.
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  And I was always being excluded out of management meetings even
• 3:29
  though I was part of the management team in the jobs that
• 3:31
  I was working in. And I eventually moved into an
• 3:34
  events role after university where I remember one day my boss
• 3:38
  said, OK, I want you to stand here and smile and hold up this
• 3:44
  piece of paper that says conference room A this way.
• 3:48
  And that's when I was like, hang on a minute.
• 3:50
  This is this is not at all what I envisioned for my career.
• 3:54
  Like I want more. I want more agency, I want more
• 3:57
  power, I want more impacts. I remember I then moved to
• 4:02
  London, a recruitment job. And what attracted me so much
• 4:07
  about recruitment is that it's a meritocracy.
• 4:09
  So it's a sales role. What you put in, you get out
• 4:12
  essentially. And I that that's what I was so
• 4:16
  intrigued by is like, OK, my work would just be recognized
• 4:18
  for the efforts that I put in. And at that point in my life, I
• 4:23
  was maybe. Yeah, I was 21 and I was so
• 4:27
  hungry for power. I think I remember I went to a
• 4:32
  restaurant once and like it's fancy restaurant in London with
• 4:37
  my boyfriend and there was a table of men.
• 4:42
  There was like 5 men in business suits sat around a round table
• 4:45
  and they were all talking with each other.
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  And I remember thinking I wish I was one of those men.
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  I, I wish I was one of those men at that table because I just
• 4:54
  wanted to be like part of something and I wanted to feel
• 4:56
  powerful. And when I was in recruitment,
• 5:01
  the first year of my career was was not not quite that I was at
• 5:06
  the bottom of the sales leader boards.
• 5:08
  I was not forming well at all. I was very much like blaming all
• 5:14
  of my results on, you know, things outside of my control and
• 5:18
  just getting in a really negative headspace.
• 5:20
  And that's when I basically discovered, discovered mindset
• 5:28
  and what that is and shaping your perspective and shaping
• 5:31
  your narrative and how does the story you tell yourself impacts
• 5:35
  your reality. And I became completely obsessed
• 5:39
  with figuring out how can you shape your reality thanks to
• 5:45
  reshaping your mind and how you think.
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  So since then, I basically have read any book there is to read
• 5:52
  about it. I've done hope, no therapy.
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  I've done talk therapy, I've done coaching.
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  I've done all of the things like that that basically teach you
• 6:02
  about your mind and how you can choose how to think so that you
• 6:06
  can then shape your reality. And that's what made me really
• 6:10
  passionate about then. OK, I want to help other people
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  with this. And that's what got me into
• 6:14
  performance management when I moved to Amsterdam about five
• 6:17
  years ago, which is also where I then let you.
• 6:23
  OK, can I just double click on one thing, Tiffany, because you
• 6:28
  said something that intrigued me.
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  You see these five men sitting around the table and you think
• 6:34
  of yourself I wish was I was one of them.
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  Did you at that moment mean I was a man and then being in that
• 6:42
  space or a woman joining? That's what, that's what's so
• 6:46
  interesting because like now being myself now, when I look
• 6:50
  back at that, at that point in time, my thought was I wish I
• 6:56
  was a man, not just I wish I was a woman at that table.
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  It was actually like, I wish I was one of those men, because my
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  experience up until then was as a woman was just that I was
• 7:08
  like, you know, just treated as like some pretty thing that just
• 7:12
  smiles. And and so I had this, I really
• 7:15
  had, I mean, there were other things in my personal life as
• 7:18
  well, but I just had this like grudge of like, I want to be a
• 7:21
  man now. I now I'm very, very happy being
• 7:26
  and and I can and I can see, you know, an incredible, amazing
• 7:31
  women around me that who I want to be like.
• 7:34
  But at that time that was essentially that's how I felt at
• 7:39
  the time. Yeah, Interesting, right?
• 7:41
  Yeah, thanks for sharing also. Yeah, of course.
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  So, Joanna? Yes, yeah.
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  So for me, I'm, I'm from Bulgaria and that is a bit more
• 7:56
  traditionally patriarchal based society, but I was in a family
• 8:02
  where both of my parents, my mum and dad actually encouraged me
• 8:06
  to be the best version of myself regardless of gender.
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  And I remember when I was, when I was young, I was in
• 8:14
  competitive swimming and I entered it at like 6 years old
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  or something. And when you do compete at that
• 8:22
  age, you're competing boys and girls all together.
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  And I remember always striving to be the best swimmer
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  regardless of being a man or a woman.
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  I've always looked up to my mum that has an incredibly
• 8:37
  successful career and has been like a great mother.
• 8:41
  So I've always seen the example of women being able to do it
• 8:45
  all. And I actually didn't realize
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  what advantage that is until I started working in sales, which
• 8:57
  is, you know, traditionally heavy male dominated space.
• 9:02
  And, you know, everyone around me was mostly, you know, most
• 9:08
  my, the people around me were men and the way that their
• 9:13
  communication style was very different to what I'm used to,
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  even though, you know, I consider myself quite a direct
• 9:20
  person, you know, And then in being able to being able to
• 9:24
  assert myself and communicate, but it was still very, very
• 9:29
  interesting. So as I started progressing
• 9:33
  through the sales ranks, I've got that motivation of actually
• 9:39
  being able to upskill others and give them the tools that have
• 9:43
  made me successful. It's how I moved into
• 9:47
  performance management. I think what really got me
• 9:54
  interested in starting our own thing and, and being focused on
• 9:59
  women is especially we're targeting women in mid level of
• 10:04
  their career. And that what we qualify as that
• 10:08
  is women that are somewhere, you know, in the middle of, let's
• 10:12
  say the, the ladder, right? So have have some experience,
• 10:17
  know what they want, but don't quite know how to get there.
• 10:20
  And how that relates to me is when I was promoted to director,
• 10:26
  I was in a boardroom and I realized that in that boardroom
• 10:33
  there was nobody like me. And what I mean by that is there
• 10:37
  were women in the boardroom. There were women in the
• 10:40
  boardroom, but they had 15 years of experience on me and everyone
• 10:44
  else was a man. Everyone that was my age was a
• 10:49
  man. And I was I was having a massive
• 10:56
  difficulty being able to influence others because either
• 11:01
  I would be perceived as to direct or when I would share
• 11:07
  concerns about the business and what my solutions to that are,
• 11:12
  that would be that I'm meet picky and negative.
• 11:15
  And what that led to is me scrambling to find resources to
• 11:22
  obscure myself. And I searched everywhere.
• 11:26
  The amount of leadership programs I've done, I've asked
• 11:31
  my company to sign me up to, I find myself up to right, just
• 11:35
  that constant search for upskilling because I felt that
• 11:40
  there is something missing. So it took me so many different
• 11:45
  established programs about leadership, even Harvard
• 11:49
  Business School programs, everything, you name it, I've
• 11:52
  done it. And then actually when Tiffany
• 11:56
  and I were talking about everything, my perception was
• 12:01
  there is so much out there, but there's nothing that combines
• 12:08
  everything into a streamline process and that is targeted
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  towards people like US, right? People that need the resources
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  on. As Stephanie mentioned, mindset,
• 12:20
  in my case, a big one was around presence and being able to
• 12:24
  communicate and personal branding and influence that we
• 12:28
  were like, we have to do something about it.
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  We are so passionate about it. Let's set up something that we
• 12:34
  would have needed when we were in that position.
• 12:38
  Long story short. Now how did How did 2 of you
• 12:42
  meet by the way? We worked in the same company.
• 12:46
  We work in the same company and a bit of a funny story there.
• 12:52
  We were initially not the biggest fans of each other,
• 12:59
  which now in a business, the reason why is because we have
• 13:03
  very different styles. Our values are the same and what
• 13:08
  we care about is the same, but our approach is different.
• 13:12
  And you can imagine that in a corporate environment that
• 13:15
  doesn't gel really well. Now we're setting up a business
• 13:18
  that is an extreme advantage, right, because we can tap into
• 13:22
  one thing from multiple perspectives.
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  But we actually grew fond of each other over strawberry gin
• 13:29
  cocktails. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  So we. Started as, I guess, kind of
• 13:34
  frenemies and eventually, yeah, it grew into a friendship.
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  It grew into an amazing working relationship.
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  So we worked in the same team for what, almost three years.
• 13:46
  And as you want to mention, because we operate so
• 13:50
  differently on any account, on every account, it just allows us
• 13:56
  to be able to tackle challenges from different angles.
• 13:59
  And it allows us to be more innovative because we then have
• 14:03
  to come to an agreement somehow. So we keep like massaging the
• 14:06
  problem until until we get to something that we're both super
• 14:11
  happy with. So now, yeah, now we're business
• 14:15
  partners. When I think that's why we've
• 14:16
  been able to work so well together in our business is
• 14:19
  because we started as. We got that out of the way.
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  We. Got that out of the way and then
• 14:25
  we had an amazing working relationship and then an amazing
• 14:28
  friendship and now an amazing business partnership.
• 14:31
  So yeah. Yeah, so, so out of curiosity,
• 14:36
  because in corporate life it's sort of competitive.
• 14:42
  How come it's competitive in a corporate environment and the
• 14:47
  same setup with the same people with the same characters all of
• 14:52
  a sudden now working well all of a sudden in air quotes, of
• 14:58
  course, all of a sudden now work together like it always has been
• 15:04
  that way. Yeah.
• 15:05
  I find that really, really intriguing.
• 15:08
  Yeah. And I think when we, well, first
• 15:11
  of all, when because I joined the business what 6 months after
• 15:14
  you did something like that, me joining, we were already set up
• 15:20
  to be competitive towards each other.
• 15:23
  So the way that the, the business was structured was that
• 15:28
  we were overlooking different teams and it's highly, highly
• 15:30
  competitive environment. And the leadership that we had
• 15:35
  was already encouraging a like divide between us from, from the
• 15:41
  get go. And it was when what, a year
• 15:44
  later maybe or something like that, when we actually sat down
• 15:48
  together and like had had had some strawberry gin cocktails
• 15:56
  and just talked things out that we realized like, Oh my gosh,
• 15:59
  what? Like actually, no, we have.
• 16:01
  We're so in alignment on so many different things.
• 16:05
  But I, yeah. So I do wonder if, I think, I
• 16:09
  think the the setup had a big part to play in that.
• 16:13
  Yeah. It's the rigid structure because
• 16:17
  both of us are competitive people and both of us love a
• 16:19
  competition. And I actually think that's an
• 16:24
  amazing thing because whether it's competition, you know, with
• 16:27
  yourself and trying to better yourself every day, which is
• 16:29
  actually not the best kind, but I think that's something that
• 16:33
  get you to strive to improve. And I think that's an amazing
• 16:37
  thing. It the problem comes when there
• 16:41
  is like such a rigid structure and competition.
• 16:47
  Competition is positioned not as something that's improving you,
• 16:55
  but as something that's also, you know.
• 17:00
  You need to destroy. Damaging the other person.
• 17:02
  Yeah. And I think that's the that was
• 17:05
  the problem. And that is the problem in many
• 17:09
  of those competitive situations, because competition can be used
• 17:12
  in such an incredible way to inspire results, to inspire, to
• 17:16
  inspire development, to inspire growth.
• 17:19
  But taken a step too far, then actually it destroys morale.
• 17:26
  It destroys the the culture of a company.
• 17:31
  So yeah, that's that's why it works better now, because we set
• 17:34
  up the structure and we decide what is what.
• 17:38
  Yeah. And I think that's very
• 17:40
  important to structure and the culture and the way of behaving
• 17:43
  towards each other determines pretty much all the outcome.
• 17:48
  So indeed, to your point, if you set up people against each
• 17:53
  other, not not in a healthy competition, but in just to get
• 17:57
  each other, then then you get that mindset, which is not
• 18:06
  something I think a lot of people thrive in to be honest.
• 18:10
  Takes takes very specific people.
• 18:13
  So what I was wondering about, because you coach high
• 18:18
  performing career oriented women and for some reason these women
• 18:25
  do not get to leadership rules a lot.
• 18:29
  They don't get hired and they don't get promoted.
• 18:33
  At least from if I look at the tech statistics, I think once
• 18:38
  you get from mid level management to senior level
• 18:41
  management, there's like you lose pretty much all the women
• 18:46
  that are there. How come?
• 18:49
  What happens at a mid level that is an obstacle to companies to
• 18:56
  either hire or promote these women?
• 18:59
  Yeah. And, and maybe just before we
• 19:01
  answer that question is just to give a bit more context going
• 19:05
  back to why I like empower is what we, what we've experienced
• 19:12
  ourselves and what we've seen is all of the top most socially
• 19:18
  politically influential industries in the world are male
• 19:23
  dominated. So hence why we live in a man's
• 19:26
  world, right? Because those industries that
• 19:30
  are shaping the world we live in are run by men and vast
• 19:34
  majority. So we and what we were able to
• 19:39
  see is the tackling that issue is, is twofold is 1, encouraging
• 19:47
  the women in those industries to own their power to play bigger
• 19:51
  and also encouraging those industries and those companies
• 19:56
  to make changes from both sides just to to lay the the
• 20:01
  foundation on there before we answer that question.
• 20:04
  Yeah. If we were to, if we were to
• 20:07
  look specifically at your question, that is absolutely
• 20:10
  correct. In fact, 56% of the women in
• 20:13
  tech live by mid career and only 28% of senior management roles
• 20:22
  globally are helped by women. And I don't want to hear anybody
• 20:27
  anywhere say that it's due to lack of skills, competence or
• 20:31
  ambition because on the opposite side, women are starting their
• 20:36
  own businesses at incredible rates and in the last year
• 20:40
  probably parity levels compared to men.
• 20:43
  So it's not the lack of ambition and it's not the lack of skills
• 20:46
  and it's not the lack of competence.
• 20:48
  In fact, there's so many different factors that are
• 20:51
  feeding into that. One of them is, well, it's
• 20:57
  widely called the promotion paradox.
• 21:00
  And it is about the difference that companies are using when
• 21:05
  promoting men and women. And it is that men are promoted
• 21:11
  on potential and women are promoted on performance.
• 21:15
  And there was a research, there was an MIT research analyzing
• 21:20
  30,000 management track employees like 30,000, right?
• 21:25
  That's a big set. What they found is that women
• 21:30
  receive 8.3% lower potential ratings.
• 21:36
  However, they receive higher ratings on their performance.
• 21:43
  So even though their performance is higher, their potential is
• 21:47
  evaluated at a lower percentage and they're 14% less likely to
• 21:53
  be promoted. Yeah.
• 21:55
  Do you know what why that is? Why not not why women are are
• 22:01
  looked at from a performance point of view and men from a
• 22:05
  potential point of view. But why are women see even
• 22:09
  though they perform better so the actual delivery they over
• 22:13
  deliver compared to the expectation and still they're
• 22:15
  not promoted because over lack of potential.
• 22:19
  How come? There there's lots of reasons,
• 22:22
  but one that was really interesting that we were like
• 22:24
  what was in performance reviews? They, they had done a study on
• 22:30
  it that 78% of women were seen as emotional versus only 811% of
• 22:38
  men in their, in their performance reviews themselves.
• 22:42
  The other thing is that when women are receiving feedback in
• 22:45
  their performance reviews, 22% of that feedback is personality
• 22:49
  based versus concrete. Say, here is what I've seen on
• 22:54
  your performance, here is what I think you should do differently.
• 22:57
  So the way that women are treated and perceived is
• 23:04
  completely different to the way that men are treated and
• 23:06
  perceived. And that plays a a massive
• 23:09
  impact then on on. Well, exactly as you wanna said,
• 23:13
  their performance is higher, but the perception of women and
• 23:17
  their potential is lower. And there is actually one more
• 23:20
  thing when we were, when we were doing, when we're doing a bit
• 23:25
  of, of prep and, and looking into some, some data to be able
• 23:28
  to be more precise what we're saying, what we found out that
• 23:33
  feeds into that is that men when they become parents, their
• 23:40
  salaries increase by 6 to 12%. However, women when they become
• 23:47
  mothers, their salaries decrease by 4 to 7%.
• 23:53
  And some of it is based on the fact that women choose less
• 23:59
  working hours or go for companies that are more parent
• 24:02
  friendly. But another thing is about
• 24:04
  perception, and that perception also feeds into the potential
• 24:08
  rating, right? Some of it is perception that
• 24:11
  now that they're mothers, they're not going to be able to
• 24:13
  do their job properly. And some of that perception
• 24:17
  starts before they even become parents to begin with, right?
• 24:21
  So some of that perception starts from the moment that they
• 24:24
  are hired, which is another factor that is probably feeding
• 24:28
  into that potential factor being rated lower.
• 24:32
  Yeah, yeah, the, the, the numbers about the, the, it's,
• 24:36
  it's also really paradoxical, right, that men are actually
• 24:40
  there's a penalty on not becoming a father, whereas for
• 24:45
  women there's a penalty on becoming a mother.
• 24:48
  Yeah, how can we imagine the world's got to keep on going.
• 24:52
  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's, it's it's an
• 24:56
  interesting paradox. In part, the care is this also
• 25:02
  because the care duty that is primarily on the women's side of
• 25:07
  the of the family. That is a whole other thing.
• 25:12
  Women actually do three times more like domestic, domestic
• 25:17
  tasks. And that includes working women
• 25:20
  that, yeah, that doesn't just include taking care of children.
• 25:24
  That includes household task involvement in the relationship
• 25:28
  with a partner, taking care of elderly people around them,
• 25:32
  being more influential and more approachable by the society they
• 25:39
  live in. It's it goes way beyond just
• 25:43
  child care. Yeah, yeah.
• 25:46
  So men, women are doing more better, yeah, and get paid less.
• 25:54
  Yeah, it's, it's great. You're still happy to be a
• 25:58
  woman. I wouldn't change being a.
• 26:02
  Woman. No, just just kidding, of
• 26:04
  course. But no, and that's why I mean,
• 26:08
  and we'll, we'll go into it, I'm sure in, in, in our discussion
• 26:12
  at some point. But that's why you see so many
• 26:17
  women are just exhausted. They're just exhausted and
• 26:23
  depleted. Even though women in majorities
• 26:26
  are more highly educated, they're performing better than
• 26:30
  men in in corporate environments.
• 26:32
  They're all of these things point to, as Joanna said, them
• 26:35
  being more, more capable. Women also have higher
• 26:39
  resilience rates than men. And yet they're they're just
• 26:43
  exhausted. And it's because of what you
• 26:44
  just mentioned, that invisible work that they're also doing not
• 26:49
  only within the company, which we'll go into, but also in their
• 26:52
  personal relationships that doesn't isn't accounted for.
• 26:57
  True. So let's let's go to to
• 27:00
  solutions because there's interestingly enough also
• 27:04
  legislation on the way that plays into this.
• 27:09
  There's, there's a whole slew of the EU directives based on pay
• 27:13
  transparency. I think there's parental leave
• 27:18
  board diversity, which is an important one because then all
• 27:23
  of a sudden companies have to start creating that pipeline
• 27:26
  even though they think women don't have that much potential.
• 27:31
  So let's first look at at what kind of legislation is coming up
• 27:37
  and what they mean, how they impact companies.
• 27:42
  I'm sure we're going to get into that, but I just want to preface
• 27:45
  everything that we're saying with we are not just La La la
• 27:50
  talking and we're not talking about like, oh, let's put women
• 27:53
  in board positions just because we're going to get to it, I'm
• 27:57
  sure, and we're going to show how much profitable that's
• 27:59
  actually for companies to, you know, to invest in that.
• 28:05
  But when it comes to the acts that they're going, well, one
• 28:10
  that's already in motion, the Dutch Gender Balance Act that
• 28:14
  was established in 2022 and it's requiring boards to have at
• 28:18
  least 33% women. That's a third, right?
• 28:23
  We're not talking about 5050, we're talking about a third.
• 28:26
  Now since that's been implemented, 20% on the listed
• 28:30
  of the listed companies are not yet compliant with it.
• 28:34
  And again, we're talking about a third.
• 28:36
  It's not not like some mass numbers and how that's impacting
• 28:41
  companies is that new board appointments are null or void
• 28:47
  and there is a 50K fine court violation plus personal
• 28:53
  responsibility for directors that actually violate that.
• 28:56
  And some interesting things is that it's damaging the company
• 29:00
  more, more than that it's stalling innovation at
• 29:04
  incredible rates over 70%. It is taking longer to make
• 29:10
  decision making process. There is divestment by
• 29:14
  investors. So all of that, it's actually
• 29:17
  costing companies money. Yeah.
• 29:20
  And the other thing on that is one of the other ones is the EU
• 29:23
  Transparency Act that companies need to be compliant to by June
• 29:30
  2026 and then the reports will come out a year later.
• 29:34
  But essentially companies are going to have to publicly report
• 29:39
  their pay gaps across the organization and anything that
• 29:44
  is above well equal to or above 5%, they're going to have to
• 29:50
  have correction corrective action around it.
• 29:53
  So if you are not compliant to that, you're going to get some
• 29:57
  fines. I know in the Netherlands I
• 29:59
  think it's up to like €10,300 per violation.
• 30:05
  But essentially what that's going to, what that's going to
• 30:10
  do is really have an impact on the business in a few ways.
• 30:16
  On one hand, if you're not compliant, the investors you're
• 30:20
  going to be able to attract is going to be less.
• 30:25
  The. Employee, your employer branding
• 30:27
  is going to be at risk. So in terms of your hiring and
• 30:29
  growth, you're going to have a tough time attracting anyone if
• 30:35
  you're you know, if your pay gaps are equitable.
• 30:40
  On a blackmail. And the other thing is also just
• 30:45
  your market share, right? Because as we know, like
• 30:47
  consumers are more and more mindful of the types of
• 30:51
  businesses that they buy from, like are they cruelty free?
• 30:54
  Are they sustainable and so forth.
• 30:56
  And the same will be true with, OK, if your branding is a
• 31:00
  business that isn't paying their women fairly compared to their
• 31:03
  men, like your market share is going to go down.
• 31:07
  So those are those are some really amazing things that we're
• 31:11
  seeing come in that are going to start actually from a structural
• 31:16
  perspective, from a systematic perspective, actually start
• 31:19
  making a difference. Yeah, I think it's one of the
• 31:24
  points that I always try to make to people is that you're losing
• 31:30
  out on a lot of talent and you're going to lose out on more
• 31:35
  talent because what woman in her right mind would apply to a
• 31:39
  company that has a gender pay gap and doesn't do anything
• 31:43
  about it? And and not only talent, like
• 31:46
  they're losing actual revenue, Yeah.
• 31:49
  No, no, no, that, but that is that is a point.
• 31:52
  But the the thing that I always try to make is more on on the
• 31:57
  talent side, because companies want to do the right thing and
• 32:00
  they need to comply. But if they don't correct the
• 32:04
  pay gap, they are sort sort of shooting themselves in the foot,
• 32:07
  absolutely, because they disable themselves from improving.
• 32:12
  Yeah, and the let's say, I don't know, I've, I've put my myself
• 32:16
  in the shoes of the of a business owner that has, you
• 32:21
  know, however many employees. OK, Yeah, you're going to have
• 32:24
  to put some money, you know, into your into your salaries
• 32:29
  that might feel like a hit. However, the not doing that is
• 32:37
  going to have such a bigger impact long term, not only on
• 32:42
  yeah, your, your market share and so forth, but actually,
• 32:44
  yeah, as you want to say like actually on your profit, like
• 32:46
  companies that have women in senior executive levels are
• 32:54
  financially performed better by 25%.
• 32:56
  It's actually a good financial business decision to be bringing
• 33:02
  and retaining women in your businesses.
• 33:04
  It's not just a Oh well, we have to be nice and fair.
• 33:08
  You know, it's actually. It's hard.
• 33:11
  Business decisions to be making. If you, if you were to look at
• 33:16
  some of the benefits that women in senior positions and women in
• 33:20
  board positions are adding to the table, I don't know.
• 33:25
  And you were to paint a picture and, and you know, look at an
• 33:29
  example because women are actually providing higher women
• 33:34
  in board level, providing higher annual returns, there is less
• 33:38
  turnover costs and there is overall what Tiffany said,
• 33:43
  engagement linked productivity. So with all of those, if you
• 33:48
  take a company that's taking that's making say 10 million in
• 33:54
  revenue a year, with all of these things that women are
• 33:59
  contributing to being in senior and board positions, that
• 34:02
  company can increase their revenue by over 15%.
• 34:08
  If they were to invest in the town they already have, right?
• 34:13
  They already have it available, right.
• 34:15
  So it's just about developing and investing in these people
• 34:21
  that can bring over 15% additional revenue.
• 34:25
  Yeah. So, so let me just double click
• 34:27
  on that because you're giving the advantages of why and these
• 34:32
  advantages are clearly not just being nice and fair, but also
• 34:37
  hard business KP is. So we know this about
• 34:42
  performance, about innovation levels, about the increase in
• 34:47
  financial results. Why then is it that it's for
• 34:52
  companies so damn hard to to put this in place so so women do get
• 34:58
  to those top levels? Why do you think that is is?
• 35:01
  Is that also the let's say? Is that because men don't know
• 35:07
  how to change? Yeah, essentially one of them,
• 35:11
  one of the things is that there was a study that was done that
• 35:17
  showed that I think it was something around maybe 73% of
• 35:21
  men believed that enough was already being done.
• 35:26
  For. Having better gender equality in
• 35:31
  businesses versus 13% of women. The perception that men have,
• 35:38
  and obviously we're talking about male dominated industries
• 35:41
  is that like, but we're already doing everything we have to do.
• 35:44
  And the other thing you have to remember is like the way women
• 35:47
  are socialized as children versus the way men are
• 35:50
  socialized as children, the way women are brought up in society
• 35:53
  versus the way men are brought up in society.
• 35:55
  Like women's experiences versus men's experiences, like men and
• 35:58
  women are different and they require different things.
• 36:02
  So while male leaders might be thinking, Oh, well, you know,
• 36:06
  we're we're offering like a Rolex when you hit like this big
• 36:12
  deal, we're offering, you know, these like company trips to
• 36:17
  Vegas or we're offering all of these things.
• 36:19
  You know, we are doing all of these things to encourage better
• 36:22
  performance. OK.
• 36:24
  But women don't actually want those things.
• 36:26
  Like maybe some women do, OK. But in the vast majority, the
• 36:30
  way you incentivize men and the way you incentivize women and
• 36:33
  what women's needs are from a business versus what men's needs
• 36:36
  are from a business are vastly different.
• 36:38
  And I think men have a blind spot.
• 36:41
  Male leaders have a blind spot when it comes to that.
• 36:47
  And that's maybe one of the reasons why they're then
• 36:50
  struggling. Like, what's going on?
• 36:51
  Like, why are we not? Why are we not retaining women
• 36:54
  more? And I actually think it's also
• 36:57
  not intentional. Yeah, I think like some of the
• 37:01
  structures are set in place and they're not intentionally set in
• 37:05
  place to not hire women, to not promote women.
• 37:09
  But it's it's accidentally happening.
• 37:13
  So it there needs to be effort put to reverse the curve.
• 37:17
  And if you think about let's start, let's start at the
• 37:21
  beginning of the process, right? So when we're talking about job
• 37:27
  descriptions, when we're talking about interviews, again, we we
• 37:34
  looked into some numbers around the clarity of job descriptions
• 37:40
  and that the more vague a job description is, the more likely
• 37:44
  to attract, to attract men than women.
• 37:48
  Women apply to, to clear, you know, to clear job descriptions
• 37:53
  with clear responsibilities, not necessarily mentioning the the
• 37:57
  nice to have. So I don't.
• 37:58
  Know, yeah. And again, one of the things on
• 38:00
  that going back to like men and women are different, yeah.
• 38:04
  They're not different in value, but they are different, right?
• 38:07
  And like men are generally more risk taking than women are.
• 38:12
  Women are more risk averse. Like women, it's in, in a lot of
• 38:18
  in, in a lot of how they make decisions.
• 38:20
  They are more considerate with their decisions versus men might
• 38:24
  be more flippant with their decisions.
• 38:26
  So when you take a job description, what the study
• 38:29
  found is that women are going to be 28% more likely to apply if
• 38:35
  it's clear, if there's, you know, very specific bullet
• 38:39
  points of like this is what's going to be this is what we
• 38:43
  require. This is what's going to be
• 38:44
  expected of you in the role versus versus meth, right.
• 38:48
  So again, that's going back on just like male versus female
• 38:52
  behaviour on some of the differences.
• 38:54
  But again, it might not necessarily be intentional.
• 38:59
  Now it's all about who writes the the job description, I
• 39:03
  think. Yeah, if you do that as if, if,
• 39:06
  if one man is writing that like the the manager of the
• 39:09
  department, he will write down what he thinks he needs, which
• 39:16
  is usually a copy of himself. Exactly.
• 39:22
  Not intentionally this way, but it does cause the effect.
• 39:28
  And then if you're looking at how things can be actually
• 39:31
  turned around, one of the ways is the way you write a job
• 39:35
  description. Another way is the way you
• 39:39
  structure an interview, right? As you mentioned, people are
• 39:43
  psychologically prone. That's how we, that's how we are
• 39:45
  developed to hire people that look like us, We like people
• 39:50
  that look like us. So, so an interesting thing is
• 39:55
  that for example, by having an objective interview structure
• 40:00
  and by having a diverse panel on the interview.
• 40:04
  That actually reduces those gender biases by over 50%.
• 40:08
  And we did work with a client of ours on their, on their hiring
• 40:14
  structure. And what they were doing is
• 40:18
  there were score sheets that were neutral.
• 40:22
  So they were evaluating candidates based on those score
• 40:25
  sheets. And there was no feedback
• 40:27
  between the interviewers to avoid bias.
• 40:30
  There were different gender interviewers and then there was
• 40:33
  discussion afterwards on the candidates, but after the score
• 40:37
  sheets were completed. So was taking emotion and
• 40:41
  personal biases and preferences out of it as much as possible.
• 40:45
  I know that we were at the at a tech conference in the summer
• 40:49
  and they were talking about how AI can also contribute with
• 40:53
  eliminating gender balances in hiring processes in
• 40:56
  interviewing. So it is something that is that
• 40:59
  is really, really easy to avoid and easy to correct if we're
• 41:04
  intentional about intentional. About it, yeah, I think that's
• 41:08
  the that's the key thing is like the intention and the.
• 41:13
  But also the awareness, I think, because what I'm hearing you say
• 41:16
  is basically that men think they are being nice and considerate
• 41:22
  and really thoughtful and that enough is being done because
• 41:29
  they do their best, but still because they start from a
• 41:32
  different perspective for. Sure.
• 41:35
  Yeah. And it's funny, like I mean,
• 41:37
  maybe on more even just day-to-day things like you have,
• 41:43
  if you're thinking about, so like something like 72% of women
• 41:48
  feel excluded from workplace networking, right, in these
• 41:52
  industries. And some of the women that we've
• 41:54
  talked to and the personal experiences that they've given
• 41:57
  us is when they're socializing, it's going to the pub, it's
• 42:02
  going to play football, it's going to strip clubs.
• 42:06
  Like women don't want to be doing that, you know, And that
• 42:09
  is an actual reality and even. And also if I can interrupt,
• 42:15
  it's organized in the evening. Yeah, exactly on top.
• 42:19
  Of on top of women are doing their double shift.
• 42:21
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and even in the the last
• 42:26
  business, you know, one of the teams that we were running, one
• 42:30
  of them was very male heavy. And the women in that team would
• 42:36
  come to me and they would say, like when you're not on the
• 42:39
  floor, like the, the jokes that are being made, like the
• 42:43
  behavior, like it makes me not want to be here.
• 42:45
  It just makes me not want to be here.
• 42:46
  It's like a very and and it's just the reality like so you
• 42:51
  have to be intentionally creating spaces that women want
• 42:55
  to be in and creating cultures that women want to be part of.
• 42:59
  If not, as I want to mention, like women are leaving and
• 43:02
  they're going to start their own thing and they're going to go to
• 43:06
  businesses that offer that kind of place that they want to be
• 43:09
  in. There's it's not necessarily
• 43:13
  all, you know, it's not, it's not men versus women and all of
• 43:17
  that. It's just this, this has been
• 43:20
  the reality of how these industries have come up.
• 43:22
  And now we have to keep making changes to ensure that women are
• 43:29
  well, yeah, Val is financially organized, promotionally and so
• 43:33
  forth to keep building the pipeline of women and these
• 43:37
  businesses. Yeah.
• 43:38
  So let's focus on the pipeline building.
• 43:42
  We discussed the hiring process, we discussed culture, how
• 43:47
  important that is and indeed behavior changes when women are
• 43:53
  not around are not or women leaders are not around.
• 43:57
  Is that's a interesting, but let's say you have the bottom or
• 44:03
  the top of the funnel is is in order than the middle of the
• 44:06
  funnel. So how do you build a pipeline
• 44:08
  so that women actually go from the, let's say bottom levels of
• 44:14
  the organization and middle to the middle and then all the way
• 44:18
  to the top? What is needed for that?
• 44:21
  So one of the things Tiff already mentioned, which is
• 44:26
  about the perks that are being offered in male dominated
• 44:31
  fields, like so looking at the things that you currently have
• 44:35
  and thinking about, how can you turn those around to keep women
• 44:39
  in and then develop them. So the the perks Tiffany
• 44:44
  mentioned, you know, from status based for men looking to
• 44:48
  development based for women. And that ties to the example
• 44:52
  that I shared at the at the beginning, one access for like a
• 44:55
  big reward in the sales space. But what I was craving and what
• 45:00
  I was seeking out was actually developmental opportunities on
• 45:03
  my leadership capabilities and what so, you know, looking to
• 45:07
  those, but also looking to ways that women can be more visible.
• 45:16
  I mean, like, obviously sponsorship is something that's
• 45:18
  massively talked about now, but there is another thing that is
• 45:23
  around visible opportunities that are intentionally crafted
• 45:29
  in a company. So let's say, you know, for
• 45:32
  example, you're not you're not promoting at the moment or you
• 45:35
  don't need a person to be promoted or whatever the case
• 45:37
  might be. You can set up visibility
• 45:40
  projects that give women and people in your company in
• 45:44
  general, but women in particular, the opportunity to
• 45:47
  showcase their studies. And that actually there was
• 45:54
  information around how, first of all, people perceive women when
• 46:01
  they are able to show their capabilities.
• 46:04
  But not only does that set them up for success in the future, it
• 46:08
  actually also reduces their willingness to leave the company
• 46:12
  and makes them more excited to stay.
• 46:15
  And on that, another thing is when you're actually promoting
• 46:21
  people, promote them based on merit.
• 46:24
  Don't promote don't promote them based on social activities you
• 46:28
  know, and teen bonding. Don't promote them based on
• 46:34
  presenteeism. Promote them based on merit and.
• 46:38
  It's interesting you say this because all the discussion is
• 46:42
  around doing things based on merit and the basically the
• 46:48
  premise behind it is that we men, I'm using air quotes here,
• 46:55
  do things really rationally. So we look at things and do and
• 46:59
  we just take a decision and women are more emotional.
• 47:02
  But in if I hear a story you've been telling so far a bit and
• 47:08
  cut through it, actually the men are the ones being emotional
• 47:12
  because they look at the potential, not on the actual
• 47:15
  delivery, which is the merit that should earn people the
• 47:20
  right to be promoted if they want.
• 47:23
  Yeah. Do you know, like there were
• 47:25
  some crazy, again, crazy data on that if a company starts
• 47:30
  promoting based on merit, right? So meritocracy.
• 47:35
  And that responds to 75% increased promotional likelihood
• 47:40
  in women versus only 25% of their performance improves.
• 47:46
  So what that actually means? It's about perception.
• 47:49
  Because if you put married in like married promotional
• 47:52
  criteria in place, you're 3 * 3 times more likely to promote
• 47:57
  them, and only 1/3 is actually based on promotion.
• 48:01
  And that goes back to promoting on potential versus performance.
• 48:07
  Yeah. And you see the issue that you
• 48:10
  have with that as well as like some of the women that we've
• 48:13
  coached. I'm thinking of like one in
• 48:15
  particular who had been taking on the work of senior peers who
• 48:21
  have been let go, who had been told, yes, you'll be promoted,
• 48:25
  you'll be promoted. And the goal post being changed
• 48:28
  again and again and again. And then finally, when she, you
• 48:32
  know, advocated for herself and was like, hey, it's been 2
• 48:36
  years, what's happening here? They were like, oh, well, you
• 48:39
  know, you need to, you need to be doing the work of a senior a
• 48:42
  little bit longer before we can give you the promotion.
• 48:47
  And what that resulted in is her starting to question, Oh my
• 48:52
  gosh, maybe I'm in the wrong industry.
• 48:54
  Maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe actually I'm the problem
• 48:57
  because they're not promoting me Despite that they're giving her
• 49:03
  the extra senior work because there's nobody else capable of
• 49:06
  doing it, despite all of the achievements and all the
• 49:08
  positive feedback that she's getting.
• 49:11
  But they won't promote her and and for whatever reason, and
• 49:15
  they use that as an excuse and that kills women's confidence.
• 49:20
  It kills their confidence and then you have a, you know, self
• 49:25
  what is it fulfilling prophecy where women start to retract,
• 49:29
  They start putting their hand up less.
• 49:31
  They start expressing themselves less because when they do well,
• 49:34
  it doesn't lead to anything anyways.
• 49:36
  And you're just having like this vicious.
• 49:38
  Vicious cycle, yeah. Yeah.
• 49:41
  Which is one of the things that we actually work really, really
• 49:45
  strongly on with the women is to reverse that.
• 49:48
  Like, no, you are so capable and you're so ambitious and we need
• 49:52
  to tap into that again and have you play bigger because that's,
• 49:56
  that's well, that's on the women's side of, of, of that.
• 49:59
  We see a lot, a lot, a lot from the women that we coach.
• 50:02
  Yeah, but but isn't that, I mean, at at some point you get
• 50:05
  tired of that also, hey, you're you're fighting the a system
• 50:10
  that is stacked against you. But if you are a man, right,
• 50:15
  listening to this podcast, just imagine for a second, right?
• 50:19
  Imagine for a second that you are already doing your job plus
• 50:25
  someone else's job. You're not being paid for it.
• 50:30
  You don't have the title for it and you don't even see how those
• 50:35
  things are going to change, right?
• 50:38
  They said. They say that any job you need
• 50:40
  to be either earning or learning, ideally both, but at
• 50:44
  least one. So when you don't have either,
• 50:48
  how long do you think you're going to keep on going at the
• 50:52
  same speed without questioning yourself or without getting
• 50:57
  frustrated about what's going on?
• 51:00
  Yeah. And when you're asking for
• 51:01
  feedback and you then get told, oh, keep doing what you're
• 51:05
  doing, you know, you're so positive.
• 51:07
  Oh, keep doing what you're doing.
• 51:08
  You're such a great influence on the team.
• 51:11
  And that's the only feedback that you're getting.
• 51:14
  It's draining. It's yeah.
• 51:17
  And it also doesn't give you, right?
• 51:19
  It doesn't give you specific clarity on what to do next.
• 51:25
  And as we discussed with the job descriptions, women like
• 51:29
  clarity. That's that's true as well.
• 51:33
  And, and, and I think to your point, Joanna, many men who are
• 51:37
  listening to this and imagining, OK, what would it be like for me
• 51:44
  will probably think something along the lines of, OK, I would
• 51:47
  be out of there in a, in a heartbeat because I'll, I'll
• 51:50
  just take another job. They can go to, well, wherever.
• 51:55
  Absolutely. And the, the and women take so
• 51:59
  much longer to reach that point of oh, fine, why I'm out then?
• 52:03
  Because they first go into a cycle of questioning themselves.
• 52:07
  And they that that's the way that their mind goes.
• 52:09
  They'll start analyzing, OK, what am I doing wrong?
• 52:12
  What? What's wrong with me?
• 52:13
  How am I the problem? OK, let me go look for
• 52:15
  resources. Let me go do this.
• 52:16
  Let me go and do that before they go, Oh, hang on a minute.
• 52:19
  This is bullshit. I'm out.
• 52:21
  How do you detect that, that moment that you go into
• 52:24
  questioning yourself? Because I think that's really
• 52:28
  powerful for the women listening.
• 52:29
  Like if you if they can detect it earlier, they probably can
• 52:33
  act on it as well. Yeah, I hear, I think every
• 52:38
  woman knows the feeling because women have that ability to to
• 52:45
  impose pressure on themselves. And it is like, it's not only
• 52:50
  the mental load that you feel, but it's also like the, the
• 52:55
  overwhelm that you're experiencing.
• 52:57
  And I, and I can guarantee you that everyone knows the feeling
• 53:01
  of sitting there scrambling for answers and thinking of, hey,
• 53:04
  what next? What next?
• 53:06
  What plan? What plan should they put in
• 53:08
  place? I, the number of people that we
• 53:11
  have coached. I was talking to a girl the
• 53:15
  other day that is self managing herself, setting her own
• 53:19
  targets, because you know, that's something that that that
• 53:23
  inspires her and it's not being done.
• 53:26
  The the amount of things that women do in order to, you know,
• 53:30
  in order to overcome that, it's incredible.
• 53:32
  And I can guarantee you, everyone knows the feeling, but
• 53:35
  it's more so than also what Tiffany said.
• 53:38
  Taking the steps into using data to showcase their worth, being
• 53:44
  able to to communicate properly, being able to present
• 53:47
  themselves. And also very important one.
• 53:50
  And I know that that's, you know, something that's not nice
• 53:55
  for the company themselves, but also knowing when to leave,
• 53:58
  knowing when enough is enough, and knowing that their worth is
• 54:03
  going to be valued somewhere else.
• 54:06
  Which is why we like find it. What we like to tackle both
• 54:10
  sides is just your, your mindset and yourself narrative and your
• 54:15
  worth and really being confident in yourself and your
• 54:18
  capabilities as well as OK, how do you communicate?
• 54:21
  How do you present yourself? How do you influence?
• 54:23
  How do you negotiate? How do you self advocate to give
• 54:26
  yourself the best possible outcomes?
• 54:31
  Yeah. And then if all of that doesn't
• 54:35
  work, it's really time to leave. And I think if you speak to when
• 54:40
  when two women are speaking on this, they're like, oh, my gosh,
• 54:43
  me too. Oh, yeah, I totally know what
• 54:45
  you're feeling. So which is why like building a
• 54:50
  community of ambitious women who are in this position, I do think
• 54:53
  makes a big impact because you, you recognize yourself in
• 54:57
  someone, someone recognizes themselves in you.
• 54:59
  You feel less alone. You realize, oh, well, hang on.
• 55:02
  If that's true for you too, maybe it isn't about us.
• 55:05
  Maybe we're not actually the problem here, you know?
• 55:08
  And that's super powerful. Yeah, so you help these women
• 55:14
  also get through these difficult moments and to to really up up
• 55:19
  their own, let's say, mental game.
• 55:25
  Can you name some tools that you can recommend for women
• 55:29
  listening in terms of how to improve on their self worth,
• 55:33
  self efficacy, self, maybe even the negotiation strategies
• 55:39
  because those ten women tend to negotiate differently from from
• 55:43
  men as well, which is also leads to sort of disconnect.
• 55:46
  Well, I would say obviously check out in Power because the
• 55:52
  way that our program is structured is exactly based on
• 55:57
  those things. So first we're tapping into
• 56:01
  mindset development and we're talking about locus of control.
• 56:06
  So what is within your control? How can you shape things?
• 56:09
  Then we are looking at your presence and here we are talking
• 56:13
  about, you know, personal branding, communication skills,
• 56:18
  change management and influence, all of these things.
• 56:20
  And the third step in our process is like setting up a
• 56:23
  clear goal with actionable steps for you to get there.
• 56:29
  So I'll definitely say. Check us out.
• 56:32
  Yeah, sure. The other thing I would say
• 56:34
  maybe it's something you can start doing is what really
• 56:41
  helped me back when I was, you know, at the sales board, which
• 56:45
  I worked my way back up to the top thanks to.
• 56:48
  This is first of all that awareness of your thoughts, like
• 56:56
  when you're thinking of your eyes statements, what are you
• 57:01
  saying about yourself? Like what is the story you're
• 57:03
  telling about yourself? And just become very aware
• 57:07
  whenever you're thinking, you know, when that self doubt
• 57:09
  creeps in of like I'm not capable.
• 57:11
  I can't. This is that actually a fact or
• 57:15
  is that just an opinion based on fear?
• 57:18
  Or is that someone else's voice that's come into your head?
• 57:21
  Because if you look at the facts, you are educated, you are
• 57:27
  extremely successful in your job already, you have all of these
• 57:31
  achievements behind you. But for some reason, because of
• 57:34
  all of these things stacked against you, the doubt comes in.
• 57:38
  So I would do an audit of of the things that I'm thinking right
• 57:42
  now. What if that is opinion based
• 57:46
  and what if that is factual? And then start to catch yourself
• 57:50
  whenever you're telling yourself a story that isn't actually
• 57:52
  serving you. Yeah.
• 57:54
  Can I add one thing that I learned in the past few weeks to
• 57:58
  that? Yeah.
• 57:59
  Of course. So one of the things that I
• 58:04
  learned in the past few weeks is to when you wake up, your head
• 58:08
  starts spinning and thinking like about faults, like I have
• 58:13
  to do this, I have to do that. I have to do search.
• 58:15
  I have to do so that is a great moment when you wake up to
• 58:20
  really challenge yourself. OK, what am I thinking here?
• 58:27
  How am I dictating myself what to do?
• 58:30
  How am I programming my day, let's say, and which And then to
• 58:35
  your point, Tiffany, which of these are imaginary and which of
• 58:41
  these are real? Because some of taking care of
• 58:45
  children who need to go to school is, is real.
• 58:48
  Is, is a fact of life. So that's not imaginary.
• 58:52
  But things around work. I have to perform better to get
• 58:56
  that promotion. Well, maybe not.
• 58:59
  Maybe it's telling a person like, hey, listen, I've been on
• 59:04
  the wait list for two years. You've been dangling this this
• 59:09
  carrot in front of me. How about letting me Snoop of
• 59:13
  it? Yeah, and and this is The thing
• 59:16
  is like, so from humans, right? So many of our behaviors are
• 59:23
  driven from subconscious beliefs, right?
• 59:26
  And these subconscious beliefs, you don't even realize that you
• 59:29
  have them and they are driving your decisions.
• 59:32
  They're driving how you see things.
• 59:33
  They're driving everything. So getting to really know
• 59:38
  yourself in that way and being able to then replace that belief
• 59:43
  with a different 1, you can actually do that.
• 59:45
  Like your brain is neuroplastic, right?
• 59:48
  So you can actually replace thoughts.
• 59:51
  And the more you then first of all, notice what is that?
• 59:56
  What is that subconscious thought that's actually limiting
• 59:58
  me right now? What do I want to replace it
• 1:00:00
  with? And then practice doing that.
• 1:00:03
  Practice doing that over and over again and you eventually.
• 1:00:06
  Replace that belief with a new one.
• 1:00:09
  And something to add to that is, well, I have a couple of things.
• 1:00:14
  First of all, going to your point of like what a person can
• 1:00:17
  do in the morning, what actually they can do in the evening there
• 1:00:21
  is OK, so I'm using that gratitude journal from HIMA.
• 1:00:25
  Those people in the Netherlands would know what it is.
• 1:00:27
  But one of the prompts in there is like things that went well
• 1:00:31
  today or things that I've done well today, something along
• 1:00:33
  these lines. And it's such a great reminder
• 1:00:36
  to is that even the like, even if they're not like massive
• 1:00:40
  achievements because you can't have that every day, but list
• 1:00:42
  out the things that you have accomplished.
• 1:00:44
  So that like puts it again, more logical black and white of the
• 1:00:48
  things that you have done. And another thing that I think
• 1:00:51
  is extremely important here, and I'll, I'll never stop talking
• 1:00:57
  about it is the locus of control because it removes so much of
• 1:01:01
  the frustration out of every situation.
• 1:01:04
  So it is about looking at a situation and thinking, how can
• 1:01:10
  you, what can you do within your control to get to the outcome
• 1:01:15
  that you want, right. So it is not about changing
• 1:01:19
  other people or changing, you know, the, the, the
• 1:01:23
  circumstances, ranking all designs.
• 1:01:25
  It is what can you do in your behavior that can get you to the
• 1:01:30
  outcome that you want. And looking at that example of
• 1:01:33
  the promotion, it is, it might look like step #1 go and talk
• 1:01:38
  about it, see what's possible. Step #2 I don't know if it's
• 1:01:42
  possible. Map out a plan that I can
• 1:01:45
  execute. Put things in writing, put
• 1:01:46
  things in place. If it's not possible and I
• 1:01:49
  really want that step in my career, what else can I do?
• 1:01:52
  Can I look anywhere else? Do I need any skills to develop
• 1:01:56
  to get there? What can I do to get where I
• 1:01:59
  want? And that removes so much have
• 1:02:03
  that like overwhelm and frustration because it puts you
• 1:02:06
  back into the driver's seat. You're back in control.
• 1:02:09
  Yeah, I think that's really powerful.
• 1:02:12
  I want to double click on that in the sense that what can male
• 1:02:18
  leaders in an organization do to also help women support women?
• 1:02:26
  Yeah, I actually the first in my first recruitment job, I had a
• 1:02:32
  director, Zach male director. And to this day, I mean this is
• 1:02:40
  8 years, 8-9 years ago now. Like to this day, I still talk
• 1:02:45
  about this man fondly because of the impacts he had on my career.
• 1:02:49
  And some of the things that he did was first of all, in that
• 1:02:55
  first year when my performance was terrible.
• 1:02:57
  And if you work in sales, you know, usually month three,
• 1:03:01
  you're out. He he was in rooms advocating
• 1:03:06
  for me, You know, when they're looking at the spreadsheet and
• 1:03:09
  they're like, like this, you know, individual is in the red
• 1:03:13
  delete. He was saying actually, no, no,
• 1:03:16
  no, no, I really believe in this individual.
• 1:03:19
  Like let me work with her. Let me figure it out.
• 1:03:22
  And his influence on my career is huge.
• 1:03:26
  Like from that perspective. The other thing was when so my
• 1:03:31
  boyfriend at the time, he was moving to Amsterdam to open a
• 1:03:35
  their branch there and we were going to be moving to Amsterdam
• 1:03:39
  as well. The company was going to be
• 1:03:40
  opening a branch there too. And I wanted to be the one to
• 1:03:44
  put my hand up and say, Hey, I, I want to go to the Amsterdam
• 1:03:48
  office because that would work perfectly when like on my
• 1:03:50
  career, But I'll, my personal life.
• 1:03:53
  I was, I mean, looking back at, you know, where, where I was at
• 1:03:57
  the, I was terrified, like terrified to put my hand up and
• 1:04:01
  say, this is something that I want for whatever reason, I
• 1:04:05
  didn't feel that I deserved it. I didn't feel I was good enough.
• 1:04:08
  I didn't feel I, I was absolutely terrified.
• 1:04:11
  I remember having to take a deep breath and count to 3 to force
• 1:04:14
  myself to like go have the conversation.
• 1:04:18
  And it was, again, I had the conversation with Zach And the
• 1:04:21
  first thing he said was, Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
• 1:04:24
  Let me go talk to the MD and set up a meeting so we can talk
• 1:04:29
  about it and make it happen. Like that was his first
• 1:04:32
  reaction. I again, that's someone who as
• 1:04:37
  a, as a, yeah, a male leader had a huge impact on my career, like
• 1:04:43
  the success that I've had in my recruitment career.
• 1:04:46
  Then being able to move over to Amsterdam, him, him leading by
• 1:04:50
  example of like what a good leader is so many things.
• 1:04:53
  So I mean, if I could just put him here and say be like him.
• 1:04:59
  Be like. Yeah, be like that.
• 1:05:01
  But just like his, the, the way he, his genuine care for the
• 1:05:06
  talent that he had in his team, whether it was male or female,
• 1:05:09
  he didn't treat anybody differently.
• 1:05:11
  And he actively advocated for the people he believed in.
• 1:05:16
  And, and he, he went out of his way to do it.
• 1:05:19
  And that was really powerful. And I would add, like outside of
• 1:05:24
  outside of advocating people, I've had two incredible male
• 1:05:28
  managers in in my life and I believe I wouldn't be where I am
• 1:05:35
  today and I wouldn't be as successful in my career as it
• 1:05:39
  was if it wasn't for them. Outside of advocating, I would
• 1:05:43
  say remove obstacles. So in my first recruitment job,
• 1:05:49
  I was reporting to the head of the office that was a man and we
• 1:05:54
  were not getting well together. I don't know what the
• 1:05:57
  differences were, right? But there was another manager in
• 1:06:01
  the team, Sam, that actually was managing the contract department
• 1:06:08
  and I was doing permanent recruitment.
• 1:06:09
  So took me under him in order to to get me performed because he
• 1:06:14
  was seeing my potential and he wasn't, he was seeing the
• 1:06:17
  relationship wasn't working and I was going to leave, right.
• 1:06:21
  So he stood out for me. I remember him having a loud
• 1:06:26
  conversation with the head of the office and he just walked
• 1:06:29
  out of the room and said it's all sorted.
• 1:06:31
  You're reporting to me now and just removing that blocker away
• 1:06:35
  from me, not necessarily boosting or doing anything, but
• 1:06:39
  just removing blockers out of my way got me to perform.
• 1:06:44
  And then in my performance job, my manager there, Jamie, he was
• 1:06:50
  incredible in the sense that he was consistently developing
• 1:06:54
  people to be better than him by. That was his whole premise of
• 1:06:58
  like, I want to make you better at this job than I am.
• 1:07:03
  And he was developing similar to what Tiffany was saying about
• 1:07:06
  that. He was developing people and
• 1:07:08
  investing in them regardless of their gender.
• 1:07:12
  But it was genuine interest in what how do you operate,
• 1:07:18
  Understanding how I operate and not imposing the way he operates
• 1:07:21
  on me, but understanding how I operate and targeting the
• 1:07:27
  development based on that. And we were having competitions
• 1:07:32
  with him and all that because that's that's what took my
• 1:07:34
  personality. So if I can summarize all these
• 1:07:37
  three things, I would say advocating and noticing the
• 1:07:41
  potential in women that you have in your team to remove at least
• 1:07:46
  some of the obstacles that they're facing day-to-day.
• 1:07:50
  And three, understand how they operate, understand who they are
• 1:07:54
  as a as people, and invest in their development based on what
• 1:07:59
  they need, not what you think is right.
• 1:08:02
  And I think a key, key skill there is listening, like
• 1:08:08
  listening to understand, listening to if, if there are
• 1:08:14
  any male managers listening like go speak to your team and really
• 1:08:19
  try to understand and hear them out makes a massive difference.
• 1:08:23
  Yeah, use your curiosity and what I also hear to say or to
• 1:08:29
  say, Joanna is let go of control.
• 1:08:33
  Yeah. Because I, I think that is
• 1:08:36
  really powerful if you just, especially the part where you
• 1:08:41
  talk about, I think it's Jamie who just says, OK, I want you to
• 1:08:45
  be better than me. To say that as a manager takes a
• 1:08:49
  lot of guts and takes also that you go into, let's say,
• 1:08:55
  competition knowing you can lose and not caring about it because
• 1:09:01
  you know you're going to be better off yourself as well.
• 1:09:06
  Well, it's the mark of a great leader.
• 1:09:07
  I think, you know, regardless of gender that though, like the
• 1:09:11
  three people have just mentioned, they're all qualities
• 1:09:15
  of a great leader. Sounds like a great place to
• 1:09:19
  move to my last question. So my, my goal is to make my
• 1:09:23
  podcast obsolete in, in 10 years from or just over 7 years now
• 1:09:31
  20, end of 2032. From your perspective, what is
• 1:09:38
  needed for that? And on the back of that
• 1:09:41
  question, how can men like me model healthy leadership and
• 1:09:50
  support women in tech more broadly?
• 1:09:54
  I think well, the number one thing is that we need to move
• 1:10:01
  the conversation around this from treating it as an add on
• 1:10:07
  initiative, you know, and it's like an add on thing, but
• 1:10:11
  actually embedding it in as a business strategy.
• 1:10:15
  I think it's the main thing like the, the, the perspective.
• 1:10:19
  I think why there's such a blocker for people is that or
• 1:10:24
  for, you know, businesses, is that DI or inclusion or all of
• 1:10:29
  that is really seen as like some additional, you know, thing we
• 1:10:33
  have to do to look good. Like actually, no, it's a smart
• 1:10:37
  business strategy. When you start treating it that
• 1:10:40
  way, it's going to have a massive impact not only on your
• 1:10:45
  business profit, but on well the world.
• 1:10:48
  So to your mission of 23, you know and.
• 1:10:52
  If by all that we have set right, we haven't been able to
• 1:10:56
  convince you that investing in your mid level women is
• 1:11:00
  profitable, smart, strategic business decision, we'd actually
• 1:11:04
  love to have a talk with you. And if we have been able to
• 1:11:08
  convince you, actually, we'll also love to have a talk with
• 1:11:11
  you as well. So where, where can where can
• 1:11:14
  people learn more about you and book a meeting to talk to you?
• 1:11:20
  We're all over the place, right? Like reach us out on LinkedIn,
• 1:11:24
  Instagram, TikTok, go on our website www.empower.co.
• 1:11:30
  Empowers INPO. W.
• 1:11:33
  R dot. O and yeah, we'd love to get
• 1:11:37
  connected. Yeah.
• 1:11:39
  And and you can check out, we're often going to different
• 1:11:44
  conferences and events and things like that.
• 1:11:46
  So in the tech space or in mail donated industry spaces.
• 1:11:50
  So we can probably catch you there too.
• 1:11:53
  OK, sounds like a great plan. And of course, we'll include
• 1:11:59
  those links in the show notes. So, Joanna, Tiffany Odd, thank
• 1:12:05
  you very much for an amazing conversation.
• 1:12:09
  Thank you so much and thank you for, you know, on your point
• 1:12:13
  modeling the like male leadership that I think the
• 1:12:17
  world needs. So yeah, thank you so much for
• 1:12:20
  this podcast and inviting us and everything that you're doing.
• 1:12:23
  You're welcome, and listeners, thank you for listening.
• 1:12:26
  And until the next episode, as always, keep being awesome.
• 1:12:35
  Well, that's it. Thank you for listening to
• 1:12:37
  episode 132 of Women Disrupting Tech with Tiffany OTT and Joanna
• 1:12:43
  Leochin titled Designing the Workplace.
• 1:12:45
  Women in Tech Actually Wants Tiffany, Johanna, and I hope
• 1:12:50
  this conversation gave you the practical insights you were
• 1:12:54
  looking for, as well as a few moments to reflect.
• 1:12:58
  And if you have any questions for Tiffany or Johanna, feel
• 1:13:02
  free to share them in the comments on Spotify, Apple
• 1:13:05
  Podcasts, or YouTube. If you want to connect with
• 1:13:09
  Tiffany or Johanna or learn more about Empower, you can do so via
• 1:13:14
  links in the show notes. And as always, you can find your
• 1:13:17
  show notes at Women Disrupting Tech dot blog.
• 1:13:20
  Find a link in the caption. And if you're not already
• 1:13:24
  following Women Disrupting Tech, please follow the show on
• 1:13:28
  Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube.
• 1:13:31
  That's the easiest way to make sure you don't miss a future
• 1:13:35
  episode. You can also find us on social
• 1:13:38
  media where everywhere as at Women Disrupting Tech.
• 1:13:44
  And if you want to go a bit deeper, you can find Women
• 1:13:47
  Disrupting Tech on Substack. That's where I write longer
• 1:13:51
  reflections, share behind the scenes insights from each
• 1:13:54
  episode, and connect to dots across more than 130
• 1:13:58
  conversations with founders, leaders and allies in tech.
• 1:14:03
  Finally, if you'd like to connect with me directly, please
• 1:14:06
  send an e-mail to Dearcom at Women Disrupting Tech dot blog
• 1:14:10
  or connect with me on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, search for my name,
• 1:14:15
  dear Keanukas, and you'll find me.
• 1:14:17
  With that, I wish you a wonderful day.
• 1:14:20
  I hope to see you in the next episode.
• 1:14:22
  And until then, as always, keep being awesome.