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Glass Ceilings. Sticky Floors. · Humanity Working

0:06
SPEAKER_03: For many women, especially in America, we have this resounding weight of the shoulds.
0:12
SPEAKER_03: I should be a mom like this, I should be a wife like that.
0:16
SPEAKER_03: As an executive, I should look like this.
0:19
SPEAKER_03: And it keeps us from embracing what we were just talking about, the authenticity of who we are.
0:24
SPEAKER_03: And that keeps us from crashing through that glass ceiling.
0:27
SPEAKER_03: But once you can kind of remove those sticky floors, those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors, you're able to bust through all of the BS and bust that glass ceiling.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: All right.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: Today I am delighted to be joined by Culture Expert and fellow podcast host from the Really Great Podcast from Now to Next, Erica Rooney.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: Welcome, Erica.
0:50
SPEAKER_03: Hey, how are you?
0:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm doing good.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: How are you doing today?
0:54
SPEAKER_03: You know what?
0:55
SPEAKER_03: It is great.
0:56
SPEAKER_03: It is actually my birthday week, so we're just having a big old celebration.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, happy birthday.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: These days I do birthday months because I'm a that's a big one.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: You know what, though?
1:07
SPEAKER_03: I get dipped because it is the shortest month of the year.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: That is true.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh so first a little bit about Erica.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: She's the Chief People Officer at Blue Acorn ICI.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: Um she helps organizations navigate change.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: And through her podcast and her coaching activities, she focuses on helping women get seen, heard, and promoted.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: She's got a really interesting sounding book uh coming out later this year called Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: Hopefully we'll get into some of the themes that are uh that are in that today.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: Um I'd love, though, to start with the work you do around educating organizations through change.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: Um as we often say when the when the flu season comes around, there's a lot of it about these days.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: How do you how do you think organizations get change wrong?
1:54
SPEAKER_03: Oh, so many ways.
1:56
SPEAKER_03: We do not have enough time to cover that.
1:59
SPEAKER_03: But I I think what I have seen the bulk is not getting enough buy-in, not getting enough communication, and really not connecting the purpose and the reason behind the change for everyone involved.
2:15
SPEAKER_03: Because if you don't understand the reason behind it, there's all these emotions that come with change.
2:20
SPEAKER_03: A lot of them are not great because we love what we know.
2:23
SPEAKER_03: And if we can't communicate that greater purpose, that is where organizations are failing.
2:31
SPEAKER_02: So how do you see that impacting the people inside organizations?
2:37
SPEAKER_03: Oh, huge.
2:38
SPEAKER_03: And just to use personal experience, when I started with Blue Acre and ICI, we were four different little baby LLC companies that were purchased by a larger private equity company, merged into one for all different pieces of talent.
2:53
SPEAKER_03: That was not necessarily communicated well.
2:56
SPEAKER_03: So people did not understand why we were growing, why were we being owned by someone else?
3:00
SPEAKER_03: Why were we changing policies and procedures?
3:02
SPEAKER_03: And what people do is they dig in, they dig in their heels, and they just they do not want to change, or they leave because they don't understand.
3:12
SPEAKER_03: So you have the best talent hemorrhaging, and then you have like the mediocre talent hanging behind because you know they're just doing what they're doing, and they don't understand what you're doing.
3:24
SPEAKER_03: And so they just get very frustrated.
3:26
SPEAKER_03: They often don't follow what your new policies and procedures and you know, standard operating procedures are, and they just they cause a lot of angst and they do not allow for a smooth change process.
3:42
SPEAKER_02: So if you're an employee or a manager that's in a rapidly changing organization, um what do you think what do people need to do differently themselves?
3:55
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, there's the way organizations handle change, but if you're one of those people, what what do you need to do?
4:00
SPEAKER_02: What characteristics you need to have in order to be able to thrive in this type of environment?
4:06
SPEAKER_03: You need to have a lot of open communication.
4:08
SPEAKER_03: So top-notch communication skills is going to be my first.
4:12
SPEAKER_03: Also, top-notch listening skills, because you need to understand where people are coming from.
4:19
SPEAKER_03: And people want to be heard, they want to be understood.
4:23
SPEAKER_03: That is such an inherent need in our human psyche that if we don't feel heard and understood, we're going to dig in more.
4:32
SPEAKER_03: So if you are a leader in an organization and you need to drive change, you need to be an excellent communicator, you need to be an excellent listener, you need to have great skills as it relates to managing people and all the different types.
4:47
SPEAKER_03: You can't just have this one big meeting.
4:49
SPEAKER_03: Here's the change, this is what we're doing.
4:51
SPEAKER_03: Let's have fun, which is what a lot of leaders do.
4:56
SPEAKER_03: And then people do not feel as if they are a part of this.
4:59
SPEAKER_03: But when you are communicating and you're having these individual one-on-ones across the board, individuals feel much more bought in.
5:05
SPEAKER_03: They feel like I can voice my concerns.
5:07
SPEAKER_03: We might not even agree with all my concerns.
5:09
SPEAKER_03: You know, I may say I don't think this is a great idea, but if I you are a leader that I know, like, and trust, I've said my piece.
5:17
SPEAKER_03: Why do I disagree?
5:19
SPEAKER_03: And now I'm just gonna get on your ship and I'm gonna go where you're rowing because you're a leader that I know I can trust.
5:25
SPEAKER_03: But you have to allow for that opportunity.
5:27
SPEAKER_03: So it really is those soft people skills that are the most critical when it comes to driving change.
5:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what I what I find really interesting about that, and it's something that's been backed up by our work too, is you kind of you hint at the it this is underlying human nature, right?
5:43
SPEAKER_02: It's underlying human nature to to in some cases be suspicious of change, in some cases disagree with change.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: Um and we tend to conflate when we bring in some large-scale change inside an organization.
5:57
SPEAKER_02: We tend to conflate the idea that um people that are not immediately bought in or immediately on board um, or people that are kind of a squeaky wheel when it first starts, are in some way not outperforming, or it's related to how effective they are as a potential employee.
6:15
SPEAKER_02: We're not necessarily looking at the work that we're doing to reflect, respect, and understand the the human nature of the people that work inside of organizations.
6:26
SPEAKER_03: Well, and what you have to understand is that 99.9% of the people in your organization care and they want to do good work.
6:34
SPEAKER_03: And so when you bring about a change, and if they don't quite understand it, or to use your words, they're the squeaky wheel, it's not that they're in such a disagreement with you for any other reason, but it's because they truly care about the work that they're doing and they worry that this change is going to impact that work.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: So a few weeks back, we uh spoke to Laurie Maison, she's the chief coaching officer at Sounding Board, and in that discussion, I asked her what she what she felt were the most significant changes in the uh in the world of work that she's witnessed through her career.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: And she pointed right away to changing demographics in the workforce, um, including uh more women in roles that have been traditionally dominated by men.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: But um also she pointed out that views as to what leadership is and success metrics are are still very much defined in traditional masculine ways.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: Do you do you agree with that statement?
7:43
SPEAKER_03: I think it's gonna depend on what industry and what culture you're in, honestly, but I do not agree necessarily with what we value in leadership is has not changed or is changing or has not changed.
7:57
SPEAKER_03: I believe that that has changed, and that I believe that people really do value authenticity, they value empathy, they value open and honesty, they value when you step up and say, hey, listen, I really messed up or I'm having a bad day and I'm off my game because everyone else is human and experiencing those things.
8:17
SPEAKER_03: We do not want our leaders to have this godlike complex where they are perfect or they are authoritarian.
8:23
SPEAKER_03: We're all humans.
8:25
SPEAKER_03: And I often talk about with my company and in my space, like we've evolved really from this employee experience to the human experience because all of us have families and lives outside of work.
8:35
SPEAKER_03: And we really try to bring that in.
8:37
SPEAKER_03: And I've seen that in more of the companies that I work with, especially post-COVID, where the whole world of work and life really blended and everyone went remote as best as possible.
8:48
SPEAKER_03: We saw that human side.
8:49
SPEAKER_03: And so I tend to think that that aspect of leadership is moving away from the masculine and really embracing some of those other aspects like empathy and vulnerability.
9:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's an interesting, it's an interesting dynamic.
9:05
SPEAKER_02: It appears that some of that is is almost happening right now, like right under right under our noses.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: Because it's certainly true that um when you think about leaders that have, you know, when you when you ask people to name leaders of of organizations, successful leaders of organizations, very often still to this day, it's you know, the same old list.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: It's the you know, it's from Henry Ford onwards through like, you know, your Jack Welshers of the world and and your Elon Musk's and and most recently, and your Steve Jobs and your Bill Gates and so on, and they're all like the vast, vast majority of them are are white men.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: So that probably is still the case.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: But I I agree with with what you're saying here that that there has been something that has happened, probably COVID-driven, but that is whereby people are genuinely responding to leadership styles that incorporate the type of traits that you're talking about.
10:05
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, 100%.
10:07
SPEAKER_03: And I would say that those types of leaders that you were referencing earlier, they are more prevalent, right?
10:13
SPEAKER_03: There is still, you know, a much larger population of the old pale stale white male as the leader, right?
10:21
SPEAKER_03: But as we bring more women into leadership, you are going to have people who say, I really resonate with the Jacinda Ardens of the world, you know, and you're going to see more of those people step up and fill in.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: Um, as you brought up Jacinda Arden, I think that's that's really interesting.
10:40
SPEAKER_02: Do you do you see differences in different countries?
10:43
SPEAKER_02: Um do you see differences in terms of of um of for example, if somebody gets the top job, I'm British, we've had multiple people with the uh with the top job.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: And I suppose as we had the Queen, we've had we've had we've had a female presence at the at the top of British Society for decades and decades, but we've also had multiple British prime ministers.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: Do you think there's um just culturally, does it make a difference when uh when a woman gets the top job?
11:11
SPEAKER_03: I think it does.
11:12
SPEAKER_03: And I think there is a lot of struggle sometimes when it is the first woman taking that top job.
11:18
SPEAKER_03: And I think that that is why someone like a Jacinda Arden really burned out, because she was that trailblazer and that leader.
11:26
SPEAKER_03: And for her, you know, she is now paving the way for other women to step up and say, I'm going to take these level roles, but now I have learned from the people who have come before me and I'm gonna put more boundaries in place, or I am going to lead this way or that way.
11:43
SPEAKER_03: So, yes, I do think that matters.
11:45
SPEAKER_03: I think culturally it matters as well because different cultures value different attributes in leaders.
11:52
SPEAKER_03: Um, what I do here in the US will come across very pushy to many other countries and very bossy for lack of a better word.
12:05
SPEAKER_03: But in in the US, it's respected and celebrated.
12:08
SPEAKER_03: So it absolutely varies.
12:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:13
SPEAKER_02: So does some of what we've been talking about here, does that translate into what you define as sticky floors and and glass ceilings?
12:21
SPEAKER_02: Explain, explain those concepts that I know that you're exploring in your new book.
12:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so the concept of glass ceiling and sticky floors really resonated with me because I am a C-level leader, right?
12:32
SPEAKER_03: I am the breadwinner in my home.
12:35
SPEAKER_03: I have two small kids.
12:36
SPEAKER_03: They are five and eight.
12:38
SPEAKER_03: So I am doing, and I will quote this, all the things, right?
12:42
SPEAKER_03: I've got a leading career and I'm doing all the mom things.
12:45
SPEAKER_03: Like after this podcast, I'll go to pick up my kids from school.
12:49
SPEAKER_03: I am doing the proverbial it all.
12:52
SPEAKER_03: So for me, the glass ceiling does not exist.
12:54
SPEAKER_03: I have shattered through that glass ceiling.
12:56
SPEAKER_03: But what kept me from that role and from that position before, it wasn't the elusive glass ceiling, but it was my own sticky floors.
13:04
SPEAKER_03: And those are the limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors that I believe keep women stuck.
13:09
SPEAKER_03: And a lot of these come from very long constructs in society about how women should be, how they should act, where they should focus their priorities on.
13:18
SPEAKER_03: And for many women, especially in America, we have this resounding weight of the shoulds.
13:24
SPEAKER_03: I should be a mom like this, I should be a wife like that.
13:28
SPEAKER_03: As an executive, I should look like this.
13:31
SPEAKER_03: And it keeps us from embracing what we were just talking about, the authenticity of who we are.
13:37
SPEAKER_03: And that keeps us from crashing through that glass ceiling.
13:40
SPEAKER_03: But once you can kind of remove those sticky floors, those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors, you're able to bust through all of the BS and bust that glass ceiling.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: All right.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: So let's dive into each one of those things then.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: The limiting, let's start with the limiting beliefs.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: So to make it, to make it real for our audience.
14:01
SPEAKER_02: Give me concrete examples of limiting beliefs.
14:05
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
14:05
SPEAKER_03: So that could be anything in the realm of imposter syndrome or perfectionism, the fear of worrying about what other people will think of you, people pleasing, human giver syndrome.
14:16
SPEAKER_03: That's the I have to be the person to do all the things for all of the people.
14:20
SPEAKER_03: Those are all different types of limiting beliefs.
14:22
SPEAKER_03: So I'll give you a really great example for me with um fitness.
14:26
SPEAKER_03: I am a huge workout person.
14:27
SPEAKER_03: I grew up being a personal trainer.
14:29
SPEAKER_03: So everything about fitness I love.
14:32
SPEAKER_03: But I grew up with this belief that I had to have 30 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of working out every single day, or the workout wasn't worth it.
14:39
SPEAKER_03: So if I got stuck on a calendar call and I only had 20 minutes, I'd be like, well, I can't get it all done.
14:44
SPEAKER_03: It's not worth it.
14:46
SPEAKER_03: Meanwhile, my husband would come up here, jump on the Peloton in the back, bust out 15 minutes, and bust out of here because that's all he had time for.
14:54
SPEAKER_03: And I'm sitting here looking at him like, you are an idiot.
14:57
SPEAKER_03: 15 minutes isn't gonna do anything.
14:59
SPEAKER_03: But meanwhile, at the end of the week, he had a whole hour of working out and I had none.
15:04
SPEAKER_03: You know, and we always talk about this like in relation to money.
15:08
SPEAKER_03: If you were trying to save a hundred bucks and I only gave you 20 right now, you wouldn't throw that in the trash.
15:15
SPEAKER_03: But I just had this whole idea of what a perfect workout had to be to count.
15:22
SPEAKER_03: And I was wasting all of the actual time I had to devote to that because it wasn't fitting what I thought it should.
15:28
SPEAKER_03: As soon as I let go of that limiting belief about what it had to be and what it had to look like, I started squeezing in 20 minutes, 15 minutes, and I started getting stronger, faster, and better in my workouts.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: So do you think of um do you think it's that women have different limiting beliefs to men or they're more prone to them?
15:49
SPEAKER_02: Or what do you think is the difference there?
15:52
SPEAKER_03: I think they show up differently.
15:54
SPEAKER_03: And I think some can be more prevalent in women than they are in men, but I absolutely do not think they are exclusive.
16:00
SPEAKER_03: I think that there are men out there who do experience imposter syndrome, you know, who do go through perfectionism and the fear of what other people will think.
16:08
SPEAKER_03: But it's about what they do next and it's about the social constructs also around us of do we have the support or not to work through those things?
16:16
SPEAKER_03: Because I don't want to put all the onus on women to say, well, it's your fault you didn't break through the glass ceiling.
16:21
SPEAKER_03: Because it's so much larger than that, right?
16:23
SPEAKER_03: We have all of these systemic issues that are going to take years to resolve.
16:28
SPEAKER_03: But where it is now is we have to dig deep.
16:31
SPEAKER_03: But there, this absolutely applies to men and women alike.
16:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, interesting.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: Let's uh let's get on to this the sticky flaws part of it as well, then.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: So define that for us and and uh and again, if you can, provide like a concrete example of one.
16:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:46
SPEAKER_03: So I mean, the sticky floors are it's just that beautiful visualization of we're all standing here and we are all looking up at the glass ceiling when really we just have to look down at our own mess.
16:56
SPEAKER_03: And that mess is what we are creating for ourselves.
17:00
SPEAKER_03: So for me, as a mom uh who was told and grew up in the generation that I could have it all, do it all, be it all, I heard that I had to be everything to everyone.
17:11
SPEAKER_03: And so I just was taking on too much all the time.
17:14
SPEAKER_03: And I had this idea of what, you know, everything had to look like and how it had to be.
17:20
SPEAKER_03: And I was burning myself out because I wanted to be the strong, empowered female ceiling breaker.
17:26
SPEAKER_03: But I also wanted to be the mom that went to all of the school plays and packed my kids lunches and tucked them in at night and read to them and just it, but it was never that.
17:35
SPEAKER_03: It was never that because I could never succeed in both of those realms with the unrealistic expectations that I was putting on myself, you know?
17:43
SPEAKER_03: And I had this um moment one time in my daughter was turning three, and she we got her this big gigantic unicorn balloon.
17:51
SPEAKER_03: And of course, it popped one hour before her birthday party.
17:56
SPEAKER_03: So instead of just being like, well, you know what, we're gonna have a really kick-ass party without a unicorn balloon.
18:01
SPEAKER_03: I panicked and said, Well, I have to go get another unicorn balloon if this is going to be a magical party, because it's all hanging on the unicorn.
18:10
SPEAKER_03: So I drive, load her up, I drive 20 minutes across town.
18:16
SPEAKER_03: It's Saturday, so everybody's getting their over there, getting their magical unicorn balloons.
18:20
SPEAKER_03: And I like am so stressed out, I barely make it back to the own party in time.
18:25
SPEAKER_03: Did I need to do all that?
18:26
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely not.
18:27
SPEAKER_03: And that is something that's just like it, that's a personal example, but those examples bleed into how we are operating at work, right?
18:35
SPEAKER_03: If we're not delegating, if we're not sharing, if we're not allowing others to lead.
18:40
SPEAKER_03: And so if we don't really kind of control those sticky floors, you just cannot grow as a person.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: And this sort of stuff translates to people, no matter where they are in an organizational hierarchy, right?
18:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it can be somebody who's just entered into the workforce all the way up to a C-suite leader, right?
19:02
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
19:03
SPEAKER_03: And I would say that this probably hits a lot of the individual contributors who are just entering the workforce a lot harder because they have that expectation of I need to be good if I'm going to grow and excel.
19:16
SPEAKER_03: Whereas those who have the privilege of being in leadership positions, they've been here a uh, you know, a while, they've knocked around the block a few times, they've got a little more of that trust factor going on.
19:26
SPEAKER_03: So I think it probably happens a lot more for those who are just entering the workforce.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:33
SPEAKER_02: Um as I kind of think through all of this, um you've touched on this a little bit, but one thing that strikes me about your work in general, listening to your listening to your podcast as well, is that there seems to be a little bit of uh an aspect of changing the system and an aspect of helping women deal with the system that they currently exist in.
19:56
SPEAKER_02: Do you think that's fair?
19:57
SPEAKER_03: A hundred percent.
19:59
SPEAKER_03: Hit the nail on the head.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: And so if we get if we get into the relationship between those two things, because it is this this can be complicated, right?
20:12
SPEAKER_02: If you're in a situation where you're constantly adjusting and adapting to an existing system and either wrong, then you might wind up perpetuating the things that are causing you uh that are causing you challenges in the first place.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: So how do you how do you balance that being practical and helping women grow in the environment that they sit in already with the advocacy side of it, as it were?
20:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:36
SPEAKER_03: So it all starts in the psychological safety of it because you may not be in an organization that is safe for you to show up in the way that you want to show up.
20:50
SPEAKER_03: And I used to work for an organization, I absolutely loved it, but everyone at the top was a white male.
20:57
SPEAKER_03: All of them had stay-at-home moms at home.
20:59
SPEAKER_03: And I always had to leave early to pick my kids up from daycare.
21:04
SPEAKER_03: And I felt like I was being judged for that.
21:08
SPEAKER_03: Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't, but it was not psychologically safe for me to say, I'm leaving early to go pick up my kid because I felt that that was going to stunt my growth in the organization.
21:19
SPEAKER_03: So if you do not have a leader that you trust, that you feel safe saying, these are my priorities, and but I still want to be a leader, I still want to grow, it might not be the right place for you.
21:30
SPEAKER_03: And sometimes it does require biding your time.
21:33
SPEAKER_03: I do not paint this beautiful rosy picture that all is well in every organization because it's not.
21:39
SPEAKER_03: So you have to take each individual woman and their situation and really dig in.
21:45
SPEAKER_03: Number one, first, is it safe for you to do so?
21:47
SPEAKER_03: Or is it going to put your career at risk?
21:49
SPEAKER_03: Is it going to put your job at risk?
21:51
SPEAKER_03: Are you going to be the first on the riff list?
21:53
SPEAKER_03: Or do you feel where you can show up and say what you need to say?
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SPEAKER_00: You can download it today at billionminds.com/slash humanity working.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: So not really an ad so much as a gift to you.
23:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, Erica, I've been uh I've been kind of thinking about this this week.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: It so happens that um I'm the for one for once, a very rare occasion, the uh the the stay-at-home dad this week as uh as my wife's out of town.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: Um and I've got the son and I'm running the company and you know, we're doing an event tonight and so on.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: And it's it's very uh interesting because I think if you if you look at it from the perspective of of the man, right?
24:01
SPEAKER_02: Um I intellectually know all of the things that you're talking about.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: And I also intellectually understand um the the challenges that you can face as you're trying to do all of those things.
24:17
SPEAKER_02: But boy, there is something to be said to be actually just getting a tiny, tiny taste of it.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: I said to my wife earlier today, um I feel like you know, like the do you remember the show Undercover Boss where the boss would would go in and actually do the job of the employees were there?
24:35
SPEAKER_02: Well, I feel like I'm the I'm the uh undercover single parent this week.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: And it is just a uh you start to feel this the I don't know whether if load is even the right word, but the but the uh attempt to be able to do all of the various things as well as you want the to be able to do them and do all of them at the same time.
24:57
SPEAKER_02: And what feels like something that you got that intellectually feels like you can empathize with, you can only really do it when you're reminded of it every so often.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: So I think there's something to what you say, like as you're working with all with all of those men, um, they many of them probably had a uh an intellectual understanding of of what you were juggling, but the experience of juggling it is a very different experience.
25:25
SPEAKER_03: It is.
25:26
SPEAKER_03: When you're in it, you know, right?
25:28
SPEAKER_03: And we call being in the weeds.
25:30
SPEAKER_03: And uh my husband, he's gonna be right there in your shoes because I leave uh to go to India for almost two weeks, and he is going to be on deck juggling, baseball practice, cheerleading practice, tutoring, school pickup, drop off, and then any incidental that pops up that you don't even plan for.
25:49
SPEAKER_03: But what I will say about this is that right now, in general, of course, this isn't applicable to every single person out there, women tend to be the primary parent.
26:02
SPEAKER_03: And this is this is why this thing of gender equality is so important because we also have to be giving men these same types of opportunities that we are giving women.
26:14
SPEAKER_03: And I will explain that because when you think of in the US, the worst nation for parental leave in the world, pretty much, women and for vacation and for vacation in general, actually.
26:27
SPEAKER_03: All of the things, right?
26:29
SPEAKER_03: We're working on it.
26:31
SPEAKER_03: But women at best get, you know, 12 weeks off.
26:37
SPEAKER_03: That's the most, unless you have some fantastic company that gives you more that's probably headquartered out of Europe.
26:43
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
26:44
SPEAKER_03: Men maybe get two weeks, maybe.
26:47
SPEAKER_03: Some companies don't even give men anything.
26:49
SPEAKER_03: So they're using their PTO.
26:50
SPEAKER_03: So, of course, the woman is home, recovering from birth, raising the kid.
26:54
SPEAKER_03: She's home for three months.
26:55
SPEAKER_03: She does all the kid things because she's home and she's not working.
26:58
SPEAKER_03: Okay, fine.
26:59
SPEAKER_03: The woman goes back to work.
27:02
SPEAKER_03: That renegotiation of labor of who does what does not change usually from that point out.
27:09
SPEAKER_03: So, what happens then is the wife or the mother, the partner, start keeps on adding those responsibilities as they grow because it's just adding on to the knowledge that we already have.
27:18
SPEAKER_03: And the husband, who didn't have any time to take off, but we needed to pay the bills because the US doesn't give us paid leave, was doing the best he could, but he just doesn't know how little Timmy likes his bottle, right?
27:30
SPEAKER_03: And then which blankie is little Timmy's favorite.
27:32
SPEAKER_03: And it adds on from there.
27:34
SPEAKER_03: So, number one, it's the systemic problem because the man can't be at home to take that away from the woman.
27:41
SPEAKER_03: But then number two, we have to have that renegotiation of labor.
27:44
SPEAKER_03: And that's something that my husband and I, we work at and we try to do it on a quarterly basis where we sit down and we're like, okay, is this working?
27:50
SPEAKER_03: Or like, do you need to step up more?
27:52
SPEAKER_03: Do I need to step up more here?
27:54
SPEAKER_03: What are we doing?
27:55
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, we all have different seasons of life, whether your kids are in school or out for summer break or they're changing schools.
28:02
SPEAKER_03: So it's important to look at those things, but that is a long systemic practice that has just been in place that nobody's ever really addressed.
28:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Eric, if I can uh sort of add some context to that.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: We um in uh in our work at Bullying Minds, we have people that are in different uh countries.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: And when we go to uh to the discussion of particularly what we still refer in our world, we still refer to it as balance, but we mean it's somewhat different.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: We're talking about kind of like the balance of relationships, the relationship you have with yourself, the relationship you have with your loved ones, the relationship you have with your work, and keeping keeping those things in balance versus the sort of you know traditional work-life balance check.
28:45
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, when we work with people that uh particularly in Scandinavian countries where they have these where they have much more generous time off, one of the things that they share with us is that when you have that longer period of time off, it is a means of reevaluation as much as as much as anything else.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: And so the the men develop a much deeper understanding of what it is to raise uh to raise a child than they possibly can in our world where you know to your point it's like one or two weeks.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: And the result of that is that when they come uh when they do go back to work, there is a a shared understanding of what's uh of what's happening in the raising of the child.
29:31
SPEAKER_02: We just don't have the the time or the space to develop that.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: And as a result, I think, you know, sort of cultural norms as to what uh what it takes to be a parent kick in even stronger almost because of that.
29:46
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, absolutely.
29:48
SPEAKER_03: And you know, if you want to look back on the women again, too, so many women used to stay home with their kids.
29:55
SPEAKER_03: And so many more nowadays have very robust careers.
30:00
SPEAKER_03: They're running companies, you know.
30:02
SPEAKER_03: That wasn't that wasn't the world 50 years ago.
30:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:08
SPEAKER_02: Um I think I think I recurrent like many of us men are often to come back to this the systemic stuff, right?
30:18
SPEAKER_02: Many of us men are are often a little bit blind as to the challenges that women face in the workplace unless unless it is egregious misogyny or sexism or things like that.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: Um can you give me an example of some of the more, let's say, subtle challenges that women deal with in the workplace on a day-to-day basis?
30:42
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
30:43
SPEAKER_03: And I mean, I'll use uh a very tangible issue that I went through, and that was that I one time had a boss that told me that I could intimidate people, that I tended to intimidate people by how close I got to the Zoom camera.
31:00
SPEAKER_03: And that I probably didn't mean to be intimidating, but I was intimidating, I should try to be warmer.
31:06
SPEAKER_03: Now, that advice in itself is not terrible.
31:09
SPEAKER_03: If I'm intimidating people, I would like to know.
31:13
SPEAKER_03: But have you ever told a man that he's being intimidated because of where his Zoom placement is?
31:19
SPEAKER_03: And it's a small thing and it's a tiny microaggression, but the answer was no.
31:25
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, there was another instance where what they what they call it is mansplaining.
31:31
SPEAKER_03: A lot of that goes on.
31:32
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, the company that I work for, our parent company, is based out of Bangalore in India.
31:39
SPEAKER_03: And I had a fellow executive one time tell me, because we were in a disagreement about how something should happen, that he didn't know if I realized that our headquarters was based out of India.
31:50
SPEAKER_03: I had to stand up and say, I would hope that as your peer, you would know that I have the knowledge of where our headquarters is located.
32:01
SPEAKER_03: And that kind of set him back because sometimes you have to point it out of like, would you want another person talking to your wife, daughter, or sister that way?
32:10
SPEAKER_03: And 99% of the time, the answer is no.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:15
SPEAKER_02: And when you do point, so is this something that you're that you're coaching your your clients on when and and when you do point out those things in general, what what's the what's the kind of response that you're gonna get?
32:29
SPEAKER_03: I believe that timing is everything.
32:31
SPEAKER_03: So, like the last example that I gave you about mansplaining, I did not give him that feedback in the moment.
32:38
SPEAKER_03: I wanted some time to cool off and come back.
32:40
SPEAKER_03: But then when we later met and I said, hey, listen, when we were having our disagreement and you told me that you had concerns, I didn't know where our headquarters was located, were you serious or were you upset?
32:51
SPEAKER_03: Because it comes across very mansplainy.
32:54
SPEAKER_03: And that's when that person can really say, Oh, wow, I, you know, yes, I was upset and I didn't even realize how that came across.
33:02
SPEAKER_03: You know, but if it's just in communication, like when I got the feedback about being intimidating by Zoom placement, I had to sit on that one for a while because I wasn't sure how I felt about that feedback yet.
33:14
SPEAKER_03: And so when I kind of got my thoughts clear around that, I was able to go back and say, that's very interesting that you got that feedback.
33:20
SPEAKER_03: Do you have any specific examples?
33:23
SPEAKER_03: And he could not give me an exact timing of like, yes, this person, this meeting, this Zoom event.
33:28
SPEAKER_03: It was just this general feeling.
33:30
SPEAKER_03: And for me, general feelings are not great feedback and it's not something that I really need to take into consideration.
33:36
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, in talking with that person, I did tell him, hey, because we're so close, I don't think you realize it, but to be a woman hearing that feedback, it doesn't sit well.
33:48
SPEAKER_03: You know, have you ever said that to a man?
33:50
SPEAKER_03: And then when he thought about it, and this is a very, you know, in touch with diversity, equity, inclusion kind of person, he said, you know it?
33:56
SPEAKER_03: No, and I didn't even realize that, and it's probably not great feedback to give.
34:00
unknown: Yeah.
34:01
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, thank you.
34:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're touching on something that I think is really interesting.
34:07
SPEAKER_02: Some of the women that we've that we've worked with in the past, they talk about a a cycle and it creates a little bit of of a fear in them in some cases.
34:17
SPEAKER_02: Whereby if they if as and when they respond um and talk to their male peers about it, it goes from being the the fear is anyway, that you go from being labeled in the way that you've been laughing you've been labeled in the initial criticism to now being labeled as difficult because you're bringing up the criticism and trying to address the criticism.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: Um when you encounter people that you're working with who have that fear and then just prefer to stay silent because of it, how do you help them work through that fear?
34:56
SPEAKER_03: I choose to go down the empowering route.
34:59
SPEAKER_03: And what I mean by that is delivering that type of feedback is hard because maybe he does say that to all men.
35:08
SPEAKER_03: Who knows?
35:09
SPEAKER_03: I don't.
35:09
SPEAKER_03: I just know how I am perceiving it and how I feel.
35:13
SPEAKER_03: So I always encourage them to sit with the feedback, really think about how it resonates.
35:17
SPEAKER_03: Of course, address the psychological safety aspect that we always talked about it or already talked about.
35:22
SPEAKER_03: But one of the big things that I believe in is that we all have a duty to be a change maker.
35:29
SPEAKER_03: And change has to start with somebody.
35:32
SPEAKER_03: And sometimes that somebody is you.
35:34
SPEAKER_03: Is it ideal?
35:36
SPEAKER_03: Not always, but we have to be the person to say this is no longer acceptable, and we have to get a little uncomfortable with that if we're going to drive change.
35:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:46
SPEAKER_02: Your pod.
35:47
SPEAKER_02: I love your pod, by the way.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: And uh and one of the things that I should mention as a man uh is that I actually find it like not just uh interesting and providing, you know, sort of different perspectives than I um than I might normally hear, but also actually kind of like practically useful.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: You've adopted a really interesting um model, I think, which is you've got these really intriguing interviews, but you're you've also got these occasional pods that you drop which which are almost like centered around train like a form of training in a way.
36:26
SPEAKER_02: Um so what was the as you were kind of building out the pod, what was what was behind that?
36:34
SPEAKER_02: Why did you so it's it's an it's a slightly unusual structure.
36:37
SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm just curious as to as to why you've decided to kind of combine those two things in the under the one roof.
36:43
SPEAKER_03: Maybe because I'm crazy, I don't know.
36:46
SPEAKER_03: But you know, I wanted to start a podcast and I really didn't know what it was gonna do, where it was gonna go, or even how to do any of it.
36:56
SPEAKER_03: And I knew I wanted to talk to other amazing women and share their stories because I grew up in the home where I did have working moms, but they were traditional women jobs, like being a nurse.
37:10
SPEAKER_03: And that is great, but I did not have any strong female C level leaders to look up to and learn from.
37:16
SPEAKER_03: And so when I talk to my mother about a lot of the work issues that I have or she has had in the past, they're on two totally different playing fields.
37:24
SPEAKER_03: And then I live in suburbia, North Carolina, America, where most of the women in my vicinity, in my neighborhood, don't work.
37:34
SPEAKER_03: You know, and they were wanting to go to lunch dates and play dates at two o'clock on a Tuesday, and I wasn't connecting and I wasn't resonating with anyone.
37:41
SPEAKER_03: And it felt very isolating.
37:43
SPEAKER_03: Whereas my husband could go down to anyone on the cul-de-sac and they all worked.
37:47
SPEAKER_03: So that's when I really started connecting with other women in positions like me because I wanted to hear their stories because it was making me feel not alone.
37:57
SPEAKER_03: It was making me feel more connected to a greater community.
38:01
SPEAKER_03: But having a network and a connection is not enough.
38:04
SPEAKER_03: Like we have to know how to move through these, you know, crazy stories that happen to us as women and also just how to grow our careers and how to change our mindsets and how to bust whatever the glass ceiling is in front of us.
38:18
SPEAKER_03: So that's when I started, the whole concept started actually as a stepping stone.
38:23
SPEAKER_03: I was gonna be a stepping stone into leadership, a stepping stone into the next, but then it really just kind of transformed into me being very honest about what I'm going through in my life or where my struggles were or what needed to change.
38:36
SPEAKER_03: And that really resonated with other women because those were all the things we weren't saying out loud.
38:42
SPEAKER_03: You know, I just released uh an episode around Valentine's Day on self-compassion because I was never a self-compassionate person.
38:50
SPEAKER_03: I would give love and grace to everyone else around me, but I would beat myself up over it.
38:55
SPEAKER_03: And I know I'm not the only woman who does that.
38:57
SPEAKER_03: So it's like if I can open that up and we can create a conversation around it, maybe we can minimize some of those sticky floors.
39:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a great example of of these sort of like almost like micro trainings.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: I love that uh I love that episode.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: And actually I learned a I learned a lot from it as well.
39:15
SPEAKER_02: Um, things that I'm I'm taking into my own kind of daily practice as well.
39:20
SPEAKER_02: Really appreciate it.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, amazing.
39:22
SPEAKER_02: And it got me thinking, actually.
39:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I got it got me thinking, actually.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: Um because as I mentioned, right, I I got real value out of that.
39:30
SPEAKER_02: But what your primary audience is obvious is obviously women.
39:36
SPEAKER_02: What do you think are the the key differences that you see when you're helping women grow?
39:44
SPEAKER_02: Is it just the circumstances they face and the broader roles that they play in and out of the workplace, or are there also key differences that you see in terms of of how women learn and grow and if you like, have self-limiting beliefs that you were talking about as well?
40:02
SPEAKER_02: Are those are those factors where you see I mean, obviously no human is uh is identical to other to others, but are there are there generalized differences that you see between men and women in those things?
40:15
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
40:16
SPEAKER_03: And I think when when I am doing executive coaching with women, it really is this holistic life coaching almost because we are talking about balancing the kids and the family and exercise and when we're supposed to do this and that.
40:32
SPEAKER_03: And when I start with men, it's very much like these are the problems I'm having at work.
40:37
SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about it.
40:39
SPEAKER_03: And I'll have to slow them down sometimes.
40:42
SPEAKER_03: And I'll have to say, well, how are things going on in your personal life?
40:46
SPEAKER_03: Do you feel like you're spending enough time outside of work?
40:48
SPEAKER_03: Are you able to decompress?
40:50
SPEAKER_03: And they're always like, oh yeah, yeah, that's fine.
40:51
SPEAKER_03: On to the next thing, you know, work focused.
40:54
SPEAKER_03: Whereas women are looking at like this whole big picture, right?
40:58
SPEAKER_03: The whole person.
40:59
SPEAKER_03: And that's one of the biggest differences that I see.
41:02
SPEAKER_03: But some of the other differences that I see are just in the confidence level.
41:06
SPEAKER_03: And I think some of that stems from the systemic issues that we were mentioning earlier from representation.
41:12
SPEAKER_03: I mean, Hewlett Packard did a study a long time ago.
41:15
SPEAKER_03: Um I know this has been talked about many, many times, about when men apply for a job, they'll do it if they meet, you know, 40% of the criteria, and women won't do it until they meet 100%.
41:27
SPEAKER_03: I just made those numbers up.
41:28
SPEAKER_03: I don't know what the real ones are off the top of my head.
41:30
SPEAKER_03: But, you know, it's working with them to challenge some of those uncomfortable feelings because we have just grown up with these different norms that have us thinking differently, like, oh, I shouldn't do that.
41:42
SPEAKER_03: They're looking for somebody with 10 years' experience.
41:44
SPEAKER_03: I only have eight.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it's I love what you were saying there about the about you're dealing in many ways with the whole human um when it comes to the uh when it comes to coaching women.
42:01
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that we've seen through our work, which is interesting, is that there's actually a a self-awareness in the women that that we've worked with that is often that is often lacking in uh in many of the men.
42:14
SPEAKER_02: So there is a whole human in there somewhere with the man.
42:16
SPEAKER_02: They just like nope.
42:18
SPEAKER_02: Um to like this is work.
42:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm talking about work, right?
42:21
SPEAKER_02: That other stuff, I'll figure that out when I can get around to it.
42:24
SPEAKER_02: But it can take a while in some cases for men to even develop and understand a holistic view of themselves.
42:33
SPEAKER_02: And ironically, as work is becoming much more blended with non-work, right?
42:40
SPEAKER_02: As there is not a it's 5 30, so I stop work, or you know, or and it's nine o'clock, so it's so I start it, right?
42:47
SPEAKER_02: As more of that is happening, what we find is that men are are really, really not good at even acknowledging the fact that these things are are blending and therefore sorting out the whole human will help sort out the sort out the human at work.
43:02
SPEAKER_02: So I think in some in some ways women have a little bit of a head start on that because they've always had to deal with the idea of like you're a you're around for 24 hours a day and you have to do some work for part of that, you know, some it's all work, but you have to do some you have to do some job-related work for part of that, and you have to do some other things in other parts of it.
43:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, it's a it's a it's a fascinating, uh, fascinating area.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: And it kind of like the way in which you can coach women, I think a lot of that comes from that self-awareness.
43:33
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
43:34
SPEAKER_03: And like that just had me thinking how interesting it has been in my home a few times when everything is running smoothly, and then both my husband and I have a really crazy, super busy day at work, and we're both in these back-to-back meetings, and a kid gets sick at school and needs to be picked up.
43:52
SPEAKER_03: What do we do?
43:53
SPEAKER_03: What do we do?
43:55
SPEAKER_03: You know, and it's like, oh my God, what do we do?
43:57
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, well, we go and we get the kid, you know?
44:00
SPEAKER_03: But it's like, yeah, it and it seems like you were saying women have this leg up, like, pardon my French here, but women know how to get shit done, right?
44:08
SPEAKER_03: And like we figure it out.
44:11
SPEAKER_03: We figure it out.
44:12
SPEAKER_03: Whereas, God bless my husband, he would eventually figure it out, but it would come with a lot of stress and anxiety.
44:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think you just nailed it.
44:21
SPEAKER_02: So uh with that, let's go to our uh my last question here.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: Um gosh, I think I'd like to ask you this.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: Um, if you look forward to let's say the workplace of 2030, um, what would you like to be different about it that will allow all of the employees to thrive in that organization, regardless of gender or race?
44:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think I would just love to see so much more representation in so many different ways that people don't even think about.
45:00
SPEAKER_03: And I'm not talking about just race and ethnicity, but caregivers, non-caregivers, neurodivergent, those who are differently able.
45:08
SPEAKER_03: Like we need everybody up at the top because until we have more representation, you know, more of our minorities becoming the majority, the systems aren't going to change, you know, and it's gonna take a lot of time, it's gonna take a lot of work.
45:24
SPEAKER_03: But I tell people my biggest hope about my book coming out is that when my daughter is, you know, entering corporate for the first time or doing her own thing, that she picks it up and she's like, What the heck is this crap?
45:40
SPEAKER_03: Because it doesn't exist for her.
45:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like what?
45:45
SPEAKER_03: People said that to you?
45:46
SPEAKER_03: People did that, you know?
45:49
SPEAKER_03: And and that's my biggest hope.
45:50
SPEAKER_03: And I think sometimes that we look ahead and we see how far we have to go, but we forget sometimes to look back and see how far we have come, you know, because 50 years ago, women could not get a mortgage at a bank by themselves.
46:07
SPEAKER_03: Like that is incredible to think about.
46:12
SPEAKER_03: And so now that's that's just it's the norm.
46:16
SPEAKER_03: Women can buy as many houses as they can afford.
46:19
SPEAKER_03: And I want everybody to remember that, like, yes, we still have leaps and bounds, but we're making some progress.
46:27
SPEAKER_02: All right.
46:27
SPEAKER_02: Well, here's to making this podcast completely irrelevant in as few years as possible.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, Erica.
46:35
SPEAKER_02: Really enjoyed talking to you today.
46:37
SPEAKER_03: Same, same.
46:39
SPEAKER_01: Humanity Working is produced and edited for Billion Minds by Matt Neal.
46:43
SPEAKER_01: Our interviewer is Paul Slater.
46:44
SPEAKER_01: Music is by Dolo Records.
46:46
SPEAKER_01: If you like this podcast, please subscribe, like, and recommend us to others.
46:50
SPEAKER_01: It helps us reach more people.
46:52
SPEAKER_01: If you want to learn more about how Billion Minds gets companies ready for the future of work by building adaptable, resilient employees, look for them on LinkedIn or visit their website at billionminds.com.