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The Likeability Trap: with Alicia Menendez (Journalist) · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that.
0:13
Speaker 2: Put a new spin on pretty. This is pretty smart.
0:19
Speaker 1: Today's episode is about the likability trap.
0:23
Speaker 2: What is that?
0:24
Speaker 1: It's the impossible bind women are in to be viewed
0:27
Speaker 1: as a leader and a boss and still be likable.
0:33
Speaker 2: And if you're thinking, Danielle, what does that even mean?
0:35
Speaker 2: Let me give you one example.
0:37
Speaker 1: There was a study done in which researchers showed a
0:39
Speaker 1: series of videos where an individual was forced to choose
0:43
Speaker 1: between staying at work and dealing with a crisis or
0:46
Speaker 1: going home to tend to a sick child. Men had
0:50
Speaker 1: no penalty either way. Women were either competent and unlikable,
0:55
Speaker 1: or likable and incompetent. When men walk into a room,
1:00
Speaker 1: they are perceived as competent. When women walk into a room,
1:04
Speaker 1: they have to prove it. Our Guest Award winning journalist
1:10
Speaker 1: Alicia Menendez wrote a book about navigating likability. In it,
1:15
Speaker 1: she says, when women walk into a room, there are
1:18
Speaker 1: assumptions made about us, and many of us go to
1:21
Speaker 1: great lengths to undercut those assumptions. We know to always
1:25
Speaker 1: be prepared. We can't afford to slip up to us.
1:29
Speaker 1: Be yourself can sound like a dare a safe declaration
1:33
Speaker 1: only truly intended for those who are assumed to be competent, qualified,
1:38
Speaker 1: and powerful. The constant chatter of how women lead impedes
1:42
Speaker 1: them from leading and trying to be everything all at once.
1:46
Speaker 1: Women are straight up exhausted. This interview is actually a
1:50
Speaker 1: re error. It was the very first episode of Pretty Smart,
1:54
Speaker 1: but I felt like it deserved some more airtime one
1:58
Speaker 1: because we have so many new listeners since then. In
2:02
Speaker 1: two after this interview aired, I got messages from women
2:06
Speaker 1: all over the country. It seemed to have this domino effect,
2:09
Speaker 1: inspiring several book clubs and other interviews with Alicia. Her
2:14
Speaker 1: book changed me, and it gave me so much joy
2:16
Speaker 1: to hear and to feel that this conversation changed so
2:20
Speaker 1: many of you too. Even my mom, who is my
2:23
Speaker 1: greatest fan but my toughest critic she really does not
2:27
Speaker 1: lie to me, called me after this interview and said,
2:30
Speaker 1: I feel seen in my work life for the first
2:32
Speaker 1: time in thirty years after listening to this, and I
2:36
Speaker 1: know why.
2:36
Speaker 2: She said that.
2:37
Speaker 1: Alicia's book, The Likability trap gives us the words to
2:40
Speaker 1: explain what I think so many of us have been
2:42
Speaker 1: feeling for years and just didn't have the language to explain.
2:47
Speaker 1: Today's conversation covers what the likability trap actually is two
2:52
Speaker 1: concepts she deems the cardib effect and the Goldilocks conundrum.
2:57
Speaker 1: If you can be rewarded at work for authenticity.
3:00
Speaker 2: Who replies?
3:00
Speaker 1: You can use if someone says something to you that
3:02
Speaker 1: makes you uncomfortable at work, And ultimately we discuss if
3:07
Speaker 1: women can never get out of the trap.
3:21
Speaker 2: Alicia, it is such a trap.
3:23
Speaker 1: I felt like I had PMS for the last ten
3:26
Speaker 1: years of my career, and then I read your book
3:29
Speaker 1: and I thought, for the very first time, oh my god,
3:31
Speaker 1: maybe it's not me.
3:32
Speaker 2: So thank you for that.
3:34
Speaker 3: Thank you for reading it. Like writing a book is
3:36
Speaker 3: one thing, having the.
3:37
Speaker 4: Book find the person it was meant for, and then
3:41
Speaker 4: having that person actually read it is a whole other level.
3:44
Speaker 2: I've never thought about it that way.
3:45
Speaker 1: I love the idea of a book finding somebody because
3:48
Speaker 1: it does land in the hands of the person who's
3:50
Speaker 1: supposed to read it.
3:51
Speaker 2: That's very cool.
3:52
Speaker 1: I kind of have this armchair philosophy. It's definitely not
3:55
Speaker 1: research that people that go into passionate careers or feels
4:00
Speaker 1: do so in part to kind of heal themselves. And
4:03
Speaker 1: so my best guess when I was reading this book
4:05
Speaker 1: was that you fell into the likability trap. And I'm
4:09
Speaker 1: wondering if there was a moment that sort of catalyzed
4:12
Speaker 1: your wanting to write the book.
4:14
Speaker 4: I don't know that there is any single moment, so
4:17
Speaker 4: much as I think the process of getting into my
4:20
Speaker 4: thirties and realizing that I was in a lot of
4:26
Speaker 4: situations at work where I was really trying to please everyone.
4:30
Speaker 4: I was trying to please the people who I managed
4:32
Speaker 4: on my team, I was trying to please the people
4:35
Speaker 4: who managed me, and by that I mean both doing
4:38
Speaker 4: my work and delivering, but also being very pleasant and
4:44
Speaker 4: non demanding and non.
4:45
Speaker 3: Confrontational in the process.
4:47
Speaker 4: When I would assert what I wanted, two things would happen. One,
4:53
Speaker 4: I would often feel that the vibe in the room
4:56
Speaker 4: changed and all of a sudden, people sort of had
5:00
Speaker 4: their backs up a little bit. And then the second
5:02
Speaker 4: thing that would happen is I would leave the room
5:05
Speaker 4: or the meeting, and even if I accomplished what I
5:08
Speaker 4: wanted to accomplish, even if I received the thing that
5:11
Speaker 4: I was asking for, I would sort of have this
5:14
Speaker 4: likability hangover where I would then worry about the way
5:19
Speaker 4: that I had.
5:19
Speaker 3: Been in the room.
5:21
Speaker 4: And so in some ways it was it was that
5:24
Speaker 4: ladder piece, the hangover that I was initially really interested in.
5:28
Speaker 4: Why am I feeling so bad for asking for what
5:32
Speaker 4: I want and getting this response? And I imagined myself
5:36
Speaker 4: going like on an eke Prey love for likability, where
5:39
Speaker 4: I would, as a person who cares a lot about
5:41
Speaker 4: being well liked, do all these things to learn to
5:44
Speaker 4: care less. And what happened to Neil is that as
5:47
Speaker 4: I started interviewing other women, I met a lot of
5:51
Speaker 4: women who, like you and I, were governed by likability,
5:55
Speaker 4: people for whom it was really important. But then I
5:57
Speaker 4: also meant a lot of women who really didn't give
5:59
Speaker 4: a damn. And I imagine that those women were just
6:02
Speaker 4: out there living their best lives. And what I came
6:05
Speaker 4: to find is that even those women felt that they
6:08
Speaker 4: were paying a price for being so brazenly themselves.
6:11
Speaker 1: I was actually going to ask you about that, because
6:13
Speaker 1: there are moments, particularly, I think, in what we do,
6:18
Speaker 1: I'm on set and feel some of these things very blatantly,
6:23
Speaker 1: and I go home have the likability hangover, as you
6:25
Speaker 1: call it, which I love that term, And then I
6:28
Speaker 1: try and sift through it, and I think to myself,
6:31
Speaker 1: you're so sensitive, Danielle, Like, there must be women out
6:34
Speaker 1: there who just don't care. So you interviewed hundreds of
6:38
Speaker 1: people for this book. They don't care, but there's still
6:40
Speaker 1: a price to pay.
6:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think there are a lot of
6:42
Speaker 4: women who are very clear, very assertive, very direct, ask
6:46
Speaker 4: for what they want, ask for what they need, don't
6:49
Speaker 4: have those secondary feelings afterwards. But the truth is that
6:53
Speaker 4: we work and live in a culture, in a society
6:58
Speaker 4: where we social women and girls to care about what
7:01
Speaker 4: other people think of them. I think in some ways
7:04
Speaker 4: that can be really good and really powerful and not
7:06
Speaker 4: a thing we want to dismiss entirely, because I do
7:09
Speaker 4: want other people to feel good and seen and respected
7:14
Speaker 4: in my presence. It's actually a big part of what
7:16
Speaker 4: I pride myself on. The challenges when that cross is
7:19
Speaker 4: over into being dictated by it, right when it becomes
7:23
Speaker 4: the only thing you care about, when you don't feel
7:25
Speaker 4: you can authentically show up as your true self because
7:28
Speaker 4: you're always trying to please other people. And what I
7:31
Speaker 4: found with a lot of the women who aren't governed
7:33
Speaker 4: by it is they work in places where they have
7:36
Speaker 4: managers and bosses who feel like they should care, and
7:40
Speaker 4: that by being a woman who sort of just operates
7:43
Speaker 4: in the world without regard for what other people are
7:47
Speaker 4: thinking about them or feeling about them, that they often
7:52
Speaker 4: have gotten dinged for not caring. And so that became
7:56
Speaker 4: more interesting to me, Right, why is this expectation that
8:00
Speaker 4: women are supposed to care? And especially I think where
8:03
Speaker 4: this shows up is for women who are ambitious and
8:06
Speaker 4: for women who work in male dominated fields where leadership
8:10
Speaker 4: is framed round this very masculine notion of leadership, and
8:15
Speaker 4: where anyone who doesn't show up that way isn't seen
8:18
Speaker 4: as a leader, or anyone.
8:20
Speaker 3: Who does show up that way but is a.
8:23
Speaker 4: Woman is then seen is less likable because she's not
8:26
Speaker 4: showing up the way that we as a society and
8:28
Speaker 4: we as a culture expect women to show up.
8:31
Speaker 1: I thought you did such a wonderful job of characterizing those.
8:35
Speaker 1: The two that really stuck out to me as examples
8:38
Speaker 1: in the book were one women in politics and two
8:42
Speaker 1: women with children. So I'm wondering if we can kind
8:44
Speaker 1: of go through those categories. The women in politics, you
8:48
Speaker 1: just said that leadership is still framed through a male lens,
8:51
Speaker 1: which is I think like the overarching issue that we
8:54
Speaker 1: don't think about, even down to the way we're supposed
8:57
Speaker 1: to dress like a suit is powerful.
9:00
Speaker 4: But look at you in that leather blazer. See to me,
9:02
Speaker 4: you look so powerful.
9:03
Speaker 3: I love it.
9:04
Speaker 4: Thought a lot to know all about whether or not
9:05
Speaker 4: this past election cycle did begin to loosen up some
9:09
Speaker 4: of those frameworks. So for women in politics, the core tension,
9:14
Speaker 4: and the core at tension for all women is that
9:16
Speaker 4: we expect women to act communally, to want what is
9:19
Speaker 4: in everyone's best interest, to care about the team, not
9:23
Speaker 4: about herself, which is why when a woman says me
9:26
Speaker 4: or I, when she frames things around.
9:28
Speaker 3: Herself, people get really uncomfortable.
9:30
Speaker 4: And when you're running for office, even if you're running
9:34
Speaker 4: because you care about your community and you want everyone
9:36
Speaker 4: on your block.
9:37
Speaker 3: To have access to whatever it is, better water.
9:40
Speaker 4: Better schools, there is still the sense that you're putting
9:43
Speaker 4: your name, your hat into the ring, and that that
9:47
Speaker 4: act of raising your hand and saying I think I
9:50
Speaker 4: can do this already means that women begin as a
9:54
Speaker 4: deficit because we're not accustomed to seeing women do that.
9:57
Speaker 4: What I think this cycle may have changed was there
10:01
Speaker 4: were all of these women that were being considered very
10:04
Speaker 4: publicly to be Joe Biden's running mate. And I thought
10:08
Speaker 4: it was fascinating and powerful that, one by one, instead
10:12
Speaker 4: of doing what people normally do when their name is
10:15
Speaker 4: being floated for a vice president, which is to say, oh,
10:19
Speaker 4: I don't know, it would be an honor, but you know,
10:21
Speaker 4: I'm every single woman said yes, I would like this job,
10:26
Speaker 4: and let me tell you why I'm qualified, let me
10:28
Speaker 4: tell you why I'm the best candidate. And I thought
10:31
Speaker 4: it was so powerful that it wasn't just Stacy Abrams,
10:34
Speaker 4: it wasn't just Val Deeming's, it wasn't just Kamala Harris.
10:37
Speaker 4: It was an entire group of women who, one by
10:41
Speaker 4: one made it really normal to say I want this,
10:46
Speaker 4: I can do this, and if asked, I'm going to
10:48
Speaker 4: say yes.
10:49
Speaker 3: And I think there was a power.
10:50
Speaker 4: In the individual doing it, but I think there was
10:53
Speaker 4: even more power in the group doing it, because it
10:56
Speaker 4: became such a unifying factor that it meant you, I
11:00
Speaker 4: didn't pick it apart as strategy.
11:02
Speaker 3: One by one, it was just normal. It was what
11:04
Speaker 3: everybody was doing.
11:05
Speaker 4: And I think that is awesome, not just for women
11:08
Speaker 4: in politics, but for women in any industry.
11:11
Speaker 2: I agree.
11:12
Speaker 1: I think we saw it with the Me Too movement.
11:14
Speaker 1: A rising tide lifts all books. There's real power in numbers.
11:17
Speaker 1: The one thing I did see because I agree with you,
11:20
Speaker 1: but I heard a lot of people kind of substitute
11:23
Speaker 1: the word likability for electability. It felt like a synonym almost,
11:27
Speaker 1: we just decided to use a nicer word.
11:29
Speaker 4: Feel like it is a close cousin of likability. Everyone
11:34
Speaker 4: learned the lesson from twenty sixteen, where that was so
11:36
Speaker 4: much of the way that we talked about Hillary Clinton,
11:39
Speaker 4: and so it's like they trained themselves not to say it,
11:41
Speaker 4: like don't say it, don't say it, don't talk about
11:43
Speaker 4: how likable she is. And so they were like, but
11:44
Speaker 4: you know how we can talk about it by talking
11:46
Speaker 4: about whether or not she's electable, because its not about
11:48
Speaker 4: whether or not I like her, It's about whether or
11:50
Speaker 4: not these other amorphous Americans out here will like her.
11:54
Speaker 4: So yeah, we're we're not past it by any means.
11:57
Speaker 4: And I think you saw Kamala Harris come up against
11:59
Speaker 4: it in a number of ways. Some of them were
12:02
Speaker 4: about gender, some of them were racialized. I actually think
12:05
Speaker 4: she came up against the question even more during the
12:07
Speaker 4: primary when she brought critiques to Joe Biden and said,
12:12
Speaker 4: you know, this is part of your record and I
12:14
Speaker 4: want to talk about it. And it was very clear
12:17
Speaker 4: that he got dinged for just deigning to go toe
12:21
Speaker 4: to toe with him.
12:21
Speaker 1: I'm going to start using that in my mind, it's ding.
12:24
Speaker 1: I got dinged because it is. It feels like ding.
12:28
Speaker 3: I think you can do it.
12:29
Speaker 4: As much as you do it for yourself, you do it,
12:31
Speaker 4: watching when it happens to other women is equally powerful.
12:35
Speaker 2: Actually, what's your philosophy on that?
12:36
Speaker 1: Because I'm sure you're so tuned into it now you
12:40
Speaker 1: probably always were, but especially after writing the book and researching,
12:43
Speaker 1: how much do you try and go out of your
12:46
Speaker 1: way in situations to speak up when you hear it
12:50
Speaker 1: happening or see it happening to other people?
12:52
Speaker 3: Every time? Now?
12:54
Speaker 4: It is like a yes, because part and part of
12:56
Speaker 4: what I think it is too, is that a gentle
13:02
Speaker 4: probe will often go a long way. That if someone says,
13:06
Speaker 4: I don't know, I just don't like Danielle, that I
13:08
Speaker 4: could say, what do you mean by that? What do
13:09
Speaker 4: you mean when you say I don't like her? What
13:11
Speaker 4: is it about her that you don't like? And if
13:14
Speaker 4: you drill down, drilled down, drill down, you realize how
13:17
Speaker 4: subjective it often is, and how coded and loaded it is.
13:22
Speaker 4: And I actually think there are lots of opportunities to
13:24
Speaker 4: reframe language. And if someone says to me, she's a
13:28
Speaker 4: little indecisive, and I say, well, is she indecisive? Or
13:31
Speaker 4: is she deliberate? Is she aggressive? Or does she deliver
13:35
Speaker 4: for her team? Even words like helpful, which I've often
13:39
Speaker 4: described another woman as being helpful, and I have meant
13:42
Speaker 4: it as a positive attribute. Calling a woman helpful can
13:46
Speaker 4: often diminish her to just being a helper. So I've
13:49
Speaker 4: learned to say not just oh no, Danielle was really
13:52
Speaker 4: helpful in this project. But Danielle ran all our regression analysis.
13:56
Speaker 4: Danielle wrote all of the scripts, she prepared, all of binders.
14:00
Speaker 4: Whatever it is, the actual thing that the person brought
14:04
Speaker 4: and contributed helps people understand the value that they add
14:08
Speaker 4: much more than saying a woman is helpful, because when
14:10
Speaker 4: you do that, most often people are like, oh, she
14:12
Speaker 4: got everybody coffee.
14:13
Speaker 1: Drilling down to the specificity is one of the biggest
14:16
Speaker 1: takeaways I had from the book, and I loved when
14:18
Speaker 1: you said, because I think you and I are probably
14:20
Speaker 1: really sort of fueled by questions innately, and to use
14:25
Speaker 1: that as a tool is really powerful. I started saying
14:27
Speaker 1: to people if I heard an uncomfortable comment.
14:31
Speaker 2: Can you repeat that?
14:32
Speaker 1: Hearing themselves say it again I think made them realize
14:35
Speaker 1: that it was ridiculous. But there were two questions that
14:38
Speaker 1: you noted in the book that I really loved that
14:40
Speaker 1: when you get feedback from your employer, there are two
14:44
Speaker 1: things that you can say.
14:45
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if you can kind of talk about.
14:46
Speaker 4: That absolutely and I want to say these ideas. This
14:50
Speaker 4: came from an executive coach who I quote in the book,
14:53
Speaker 4: and most of the feedback that women get, the vast
14:57
Speaker 4: majority of feedback is critical subjective feedback, meaning that instead
15:01
Speaker 4: of talking about your results or about the work itself,
15:04
Speaker 4: very often in a formal or informal feedback session, it'll
15:07
Speaker 4: be about the way you use your hands, or the
15:09
Speaker 4: way you use your voice, or the way you sit
15:11
Speaker 4: in a chair, which for you and I actually is
15:14
Speaker 4: part of the work, but for many women is very
15:18
Speaker 4: tertiary to the work that they do. And so that
15:21
Speaker 4: if someone were in a feedback session and they were
15:24
Speaker 4: to say to you, you know, Melissa, you're just too assertive,
15:27
Speaker 4: that Melissa would say, okay, assertive compared to whom, meaning
15:32
Speaker 4: would you give that feedback? Would you qualify my style
15:36
Speaker 4: that way? If I were someone else in the office,
15:38
Speaker 4: It gives the person who's giving the feedback an opportunity
15:41
Speaker 4: to say, oh, let me think about that.
15:43
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I would.
15:44
Speaker 4: And then I think the second question is actually even
15:46
Speaker 4: more useful and more powerful, which is to say, Okay,
15:49
Speaker 4: can you draw a line for me from the way
15:52
Speaker 4: you see my style in the office to how it
15:54
Speaker 4: actually impacts.
15:56
Speaker 3: The results of my work? I think if you're going
15:58
Speaker 3: to ask that question.
15:59
Speaker 4: You also have to be open to the possibility that
16:01
Speaker 4: there is a connection between your style and how it
16:04
Speaker 4: impacts your work. But again, it pushes the conversation towards
16:10
Speaker 4: the work itself and towards results, which is what I
16:14
Speaker 4: heard from women again and again that that is really
16:16
Speaker 4: where they wanted.
16:17
Speaker 3: To see things headed.
16:18
Speaker 4: So as much as I think that's a good advocacy
16:21
Speaker 4: tool for yourself and you should use it, tomorrow and
16:23
Speaker 4: any type of feedback you have. I also think it
16:26
Speaker 4: is really powerful when you use it on someone else's behalf,
16:28
Speaker 4: when you ask those questions on someone else's behalf, Oh,
16:31
Speaker 4: she's too aggressive. Can you give me an example of
16:33
Speaker 4: where that impacted or work? And that for those of
16:37
Speaker 4: us who are managers or even just work with other teammates,
16:40
Speaker 4: that we are thinking critically about the feedback that we
16:43
Speaker 4: give and how much of it is about style and
16:46
Speaker 4: how much of it's actually about substance.
16:48
Speaker 2: So there are two ideals we must hold at once.
16:50
Speaker 1: That makes this such a catch twenty two, and you
16:53
Speaker 1: call this the Goldilocks conundrum. Can you kind of lay
16:56
Speaker 1: out what that catch twenty two is? The holding two
16:59
Speaker 1: ideals wants.
17:01
Speaker 4: We expect women to be warm and communal and want
17:07
Speaker 4: what's best for everybody. And we expect leaders to be
17:12
Speaker 4: direct and to be able to advocate for themselves. And
17:18
Speaker 4: that means that if you are showing up the way
17:20
Speaker 4: we expect a woman to show up, then people don't
17:23
Speaker 4: see you as a leader. And if you show up
17:26
Speaker 4: the way we've been conditioned to expect leaders to show up,
17:29
Speaker 4: then people think that you're violating what they expect from
17:31
Speaker 4: you as a woman. And so that is just the
17:34
Speaker 4: constant tension that women are running up against. And I
17:37
Speaker 4: think you see it most if you just think about
17:41
Speaker 4: most of the women in your life and the feedback
17:44
Speaker 4: that they've been given, which is they've either been told
17:46
Speaker 4: often that they are too assertive, too aggressive.
17:50
Speaker 3: Need to tone it down.
17:51
Speaker 4: That while they have what it takes to be seen
17:54
Speaker 4: as a leader, there are people in the office who
17:56
Speaker 4: they rube the wrong way or who may not like them.
17:59
Speaker 4: And then the other version of that, or the complete
18:02
Speaker 4: inverse of that, is a woman who everybody likes and
18:05
Speaker 4: everybody loves and just adores, so people aren't sure she
18:10
Speaker 4: has it, that she doesn't take up enough room, she
18:13
Speaker 4: doesn't take up enough oxygen. I mean, there are like
18:15
Speaker 4: a million euphemisms for the fact that people don't see
18:18
Speaker 4: her as a leader. And then what I find especially
18:20
Speaker 4: interesting is that there are a lot of women like
18:23
Speaker 4: myself who've been given both sets of feedback, have been
18:26
Speaker 4: told that we are too much or not enough. And
18:29
Speaker 4: that shows you, I think, just how subjective and context
18:33
Speaker 4: specific that feedback is. That there are certain environments where
18:37
Speaker 4: you're seen as really a sort of and then there
18:39
Speaker 4: are other environments where you are seen as not a
18:42
Speaker 4: sort of enough which tells.
18:43
Speaker 3: You you're you.
18:45
Speaker 4: You might be showing up as you exactly as you
18:47
Speaker 4: are all the time.
18:49
Speaker 3: It's not you that's always changing.
18:50
Speaker 4: Sometimes it is the expectation of the environment itself.
18:54
Speaker 1: Because it's also about the people giving the feedback as well,
18:58
Speaker 1: it's subjective to their own personal experiences. One of the
19:02
Speaker 1: largest pushbacks I hear when I talk to people about this,
19:06
Speaker 1: specifically men in positions of leadership, They say that they
19:10
Speaker 1: feel a lack of accountability from people, and so they're like,
19:13
Speaker 1: it's not a woman thing, it's a person thing. Of course,
19:16
Speaker 1: I want somebody who's likable, who's amiable, who has great
19:21
Speaker 1: people skills and can negotiate. Well, why is this so
19:25
Speaker 1: specific to women.
19:26
Speaker 4: I do think that people want to work with people
19:29
Speaker 4: that they like, and that is part of why I
19:32
Speaker 4: also don't feel it's as simple as being like, don't
19:36
Speaker 4: care about likability, just like, get over it.
19:38
Speaker 3: No. The challenge is.
19:41
Speaker 4: That what we see as a likable leader specifically has
19:46
Speaker 4: been defined in very masculine terms. That's also challenging if
19:51
Speaker 4: you are, you know, identify as a man and don't
19:55
Speaker 4: present in an uber masculine way, the same way that
19:59
Speaker 4: women get dinged at the workplace, ever, communicating in a
20:03
Speaker 4: way that approximates anger.
20:05
Speaker 3: If a man cries in.
20:07
Speaker 4: The workplace, that is an instant demerit like he is
20:11
Speaker 4: not seen as being as strong.
20:14
Speaker 3: Or as leaderly as he would be otherwise. And so
20:18
Speaker 3: it's about the fact that there's just.
20:20
Speaker 4: Not a big enough space and a broad enough definition
20:25
Speaker 4: for people to step into that. It's this very narrow
20:29
Speaker 4: definition of what a likable leader can be and how
20:33
Speaker 4: they can show up. And my interest is in expanding
20:37
Speaker 4: that to include many more people and many more styles
20:42
Speaker 4: of leadership.
20:43
Speaker 2: There was such a great example you used.
20:45
Speaker 1: You said, there was a study done in researchers showed
20:47
Speaker 1: a series of videos where an individual was forced to
20:49
Speaker 1: choose between staying at work and dealing with a crisis
20:52
Speaker 1: or going home to tend to a sick child. Men
20:55
Speaker 1: had no penalty either way, so whichever one they chose,
20:58
Speaker 1: they were to find and women were either competent and
21:01
Speaker 1: unlikable or likable and incompetent, and those two things, likable
21:06
Speaker 1: and competency are constantly on this inverse swing.
21:10
Speaker 4: That study really set my hair on fire, I think
21:12
Speaker 4: because I was becoming a parent around the time that
21:15
Speaker 4: I read it, which is to say, I mean, imagine it.
21:18
Speaker 4: A woman is at her desk and there is some
21:20
Speaker 4: big assignment due and everybody's rushing to finish it, and
21:23
Speaker 4: she gets, let's say, a call from her kid's school
21:25
Speaker 4: and they say, Jimmy just threw up on the playground.
21:28
Speaker 4: So she rushes out the door to go get Jimmy.
21:30
Speaker 4: And everyone's like, well, I guess she's not that dedicated
21:33
Speaker 4: to this project. Or if she says like well, Jimmy's
21:36
Speaker 4: other parent will pick him up, like it'll be fine,
21:38
Speaker 4: I'll stay here and I'll do the job, that everyone's.
21:40
Speaker 3: Like, oh my god, what a terrible mother. It's like she
21:43
Speaker 3: really can't win.
21:46
Speaker 4: And that would be one thing, as you sort of
21:48
Speaker 4: alluded to, if the same things happened with dads. But
21:53
Speaker 4: when a dad rushed out door to go get Jimmy,
21:55
Speaker 4: everyone was like, he's an amazing father, like he's so dedicated.
21:59
Speaker 4: And when he stayed at work, everyone's like, yeah, a
22:01
Speaker 4: real team player, Like he won both ways and the
22:04
Speaker 4: mom got dinged both ways. And it even shows up
22:07
Speaker 4: in more subtle ways that again, there are things I
22:10
Speaker 4: didn't think about until I became a parent, And I
22:13
Speaker 4: think becoming a parent has been very helpful in terms
22:15
Speaker 4: of recognizing, even as a very empathetic person, the limits
22:19
Speaker 4: of our own empathy, and how imagining someone else's life
22:23
Speaker 4: situation or circumstance is actually more challenging than we want
22:28
Speaker 4: to acknowledge, which is like happy hour is hard for parents.
22:32
Speaker 4: That bowling thing at five point thirty. That means they
22:34
Speaker 4: have to arrange child care, It means they have to
22:37
Speaker 4: plan dinner from afar. I mean, all of these things
22:40
Speaker 4: just become more complicated, and that's where a lot of
22:44
Speaker 4: the social fiber of work really happens. It happens in
22:47
Speaker 4: those things. That's like even if you do get invited
22:50
Speaker 4: to go and schmooze and do it, like if.
22:52
Speaker 3: You don't do it, there's a price.
22:55
Speaker 4: I think a lot of places are trying to think
22:57
Speaker 4: more holistically about how you set people up to succeed
23:01
Speaker 4: for those things. This all sounds so wild because no
23:04
Speaker 4: one's been together in person in a year or so,
23:06
Speaker 4: Like just imagining a bar situation is making.
23:09
Speaker 3: Me very anxious.
23:10
Speaker 1: Of course, there was all these terrible things, but there's
23:12
Speaker 1: a pressure that was lifted that I hear most people
23:15
Speaker 1: talk about by not feeling like they have to go
23:17
Speaker 1: to those things. I had an experience on set recently
23:20
Speaker 1: that it took me an hour of therapy to sift through,
23:23
Speaker 1: and I want to kind of tell you about it
23:25
Speaker 1: and then unpack it with you. I was on set
23:27
Speaker 1: and a producer. It was COVID time, so there's very
23:30
Speaker 1: few people on set, and a producer who I've worked
23:32
Speaker 1: with a ton and actually really love kept stopping down
23:35
Speaker 1: and saying, Danielle, can you do it with a little
23:37
Speaker 1: more energy?
23:38
Speaker 2: Okay? So I did it once. Can you just smile more?
23:40
Speaker 2: A little bit more energy? I need bigger energy. Okay?
23:44
Speaker 2: So I did it twice.
23:45
Speaker 1: The third time it became funny because my male co
23:48
Speaker 1: host looked at me and was like, he's so.
23:50
Speaker 2: He was so monotone at this point.
23:52
Speaker 1: I mean I should have tap danced in the air
23:54
Speaker 1: like there was how much more energy can I give?
23:57
Speaker 1: And he didn't mean anything by it. He's a nice,
24:00
Speaker 1: well meaning person. The rest of the day, I was
24:04
Speaker 1: fuming on the inside and pretending I wasn't because I
24:07
Speaker 1: had a job to do, and after an hour of
24:09
Speaker 1: therapy trying to unpack why this bothered me so much,
24:13
Speaker 1: because again I'm like, Danielle, you're so sensitive. I realized
24:17
Speaker 1: that it was because my male co host gets to
24:20
Speaker 1: show up as himself. When somebody gives you feedback like that,
24:24
Speaker 1: it takes away part of your personhood.
24:25
Speaker 2: You're constantly shape shifting.
24:27
Speaker 1: I don't get to show up as myself if that's
24:29
Speaker 1: the feedback you're giving me.
24:31
Speaker 2: And I thought about the Cardi b effect. This is,
24:33
Speaker 2: I know, one of the most.
24:34
Speaker 1: Sort of talked about moments from your book, and I'm
24:37
Speaker 1: wondering if we can expand on it.
24:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think part of what I'm hearing
24:42
Speaker 4: from you, And that's the thing is like, not everyone
24:45
Speaker 4: wants to be a television personality, but I do think
24:48
Speaker 4: the most commodifiable television personality as a woman is the
24:52
Speaker 4: perky morning like.
24:55
Speaker 3: Hey guys, like let's check in on what's happening on
24:57
Speaker 3: the Twitter. Like you know, like there's just that that
25:00
Speaker 3: is a type. It's just so one dimensional.
25:03
Speaker 4: Like that is a fraction of the women I know
25:06
Speaker 4: who actually are that way and show up that way
25:09
Speaker 4: in the world. And the ones who do that's great.
25:12
Speaker 4: Like the point is not to not allow that person
25:14
Speaker 4: to exist. It is just to acknowledge that there is
25:17
Speaker 4: more of a breath of experience than just being on.
25:21
Speaker 4: I think that shows up in a lot of ways
25:24
Speaker 4: for a lot of different people, right, Like people have
25:25
Speaker 4: an expectation of how if you were that way and
25:27
Speaker 4: you were an accountant and you showed.
25:29
Speaker 3: Up that bubbly, people would be like and you need
25:31
Speaker 3: to to like bring it down, you know, like there's that.
25:33
Speaker 4: So I just think Cardi is really fascinating as an
25:38
Speaker 4: example of someone who is lauded for authenticity. And I
25:43
Speaker 4: think you can have an entire sidebar conversation about whether
25:48
Speaker 4: anyone who is that public of a person is authentic
25:52
Speaker 4: or choosing parts of themselves to cultivate and put forward.
25:55
Speaker 4: I don't know how many professional environments anyone could show
26:01
Speaker 4: up as their authentic self that is sort of big
26:06
Speaker 4: and bold and brash and be celebrated for it.
26:11
Speaker 3: And I think that happens again.
26:12
Speaker 4: In multiple directions, right I think there are people who
26:15
Speaker 4: are dry and quiet who need to play it up,
26:19
Speaker 4: and then there are people who are loud and eccentric
26:23
Speaker 4: who are asked to hem it in.
26:26
Speaker 3: And I think what happens.
26:28
Speaker 4: Especially for women and especially for people of color. I
26:32
Speaker 4: think there are other marginalized identities where this happens to
26:34
Speaker 4: It certainly happens for LGBTQ individuals, where you may show
26:40
Speaker 4: up as yourself in every manifestation of whatever that is hair, clothing, accent,
26:48
Speaker 4: linguistic choices, and people may just like love it, and
26:51
Speaker 4: it may fully resonate at your place of employment, and.
26:55
Speaker 3: You will be lauded for that authenticity.
26:58
Speaker 4: Often feel like you are gambling that if you show
27:02
Speaker 4: up fully authentically as you really are, when you are you,
27:07
Speaker 4: and it lands, then there'll be a great reward, and
27:10
Speaker 4: if it misses, that's it, and that there's a huge risk,
27:15
Speaker 4: and that there is a certain amount of credibility in
27:20
Speaker 4: showing up the way that the you know, main office
27:24
Speaker 4: culture or whatever culture it is. You're stepping into stuff
27:27
Speaker 4: up that like putting yourself into the box that you
27:29
Speaker 4: know is safe.
27:30
Speaker 3: It may not have the same.
27:31
Speaker 4: Reward as showing up as your more dynamic, authentic self,
27:36
Speaker 4: but it carries less risk. And I think I think
27:40
Speaker 4: with all of this, with this with the question of
27:43
Speaker 4: how ambitious to be, I think we have flattened it
27:47
Speaker 4: to making it seem as though people making one time
27:49
Speaker 4: choice right that you like, get out of bed one
27:52
Speaker 4: day and you're like, it's today of the day, I'm
27:53
Speaker 4: going to be ambitious or unambitious, and it's like, no,
27:56
Speaker 4: it's it's all these micro choices. It's that moment on
27:59
Speaker 4: set where something is being asked of you and then
28:03
Speaker 4: asked of you again, and you are in real time
28:06
Speaker 4: having to do the assessment of is what I'm being
28:10
Speaker 4: asked fair of me and truly a part of the
28:13
Speaker 4: job that I've been signed up to do. Is there
28:17
Speaker 4: a version of this feedback that would be asked of
28:20
Speaker 4: my male colleague for a person of color, I think
28:23
Speaker 4: that becomes would the same thing be asked of a
28:28
Speaker 4: white colleague? And if I say, hey, there's something about
28:33
Speaker 4: what I'm being asked that's making me feel uncomfortable by
28:36
Speaker 4: even opening up the conversation, do I then get marked
28:40
Speaker 4: as a problem even if I am truly just asking
28:44
Speaker 4: it from a place of interest and inquiry.
28:47
Speaker 3: Women and people color.
28:48
Speaker 4: Making those decisions, you know, multiple times a day, and
28:52
Speaker 4: that is the challenge, is that it's like you are
28:55
Speaker 4: always asking yourself is it worth dealing with this? Do
29:00
Speaker 4: I just do what is being asked of me? Do
29:03
Speaker 4: I just process the feedback as though it is coming
29:05
Speaker 4: with the best of intentions, or do I say something,
29:08
Speaker 4: and each of those choices, I think it is hard
29:12
Speaker 4: to fully appreciate the emotional weight and the cost. Right Like,
29:19
Speaker 4: you walked off that and you needed to go unpack
29:22
Speaker 4: it with a professional.
29:23
Speaker 2: Which sounds ridiculous.
29:25
Speaker 1: But you know, as I've gotten older, I'm willing to
29:28
Speaker 1: compromise in that way less and less, but I still
29:31
Speaker 1: feel like I do it all the time, and it
29:33
Speaker 1: does chip away at your soul a little bit. And
29:35
Speaker 1: at the same time, no matter what profession you're in,
29:38
Speaker 1: there's kind of a game that you have to play,
29:41
Speaker 1: and so it's that cost benefit analysis that you're constantly
29:45
Speaker 1: playing with.
29:45
Speaker 2: You laid that out so beautifully. There's a quote I
29:47
Speaker 2: love in the book.
29:48
Speaker 1: It says, when we walk into a room, there are
29:50
Speaker 1: assumptions made about us, and many of us go to
29:53
Speaker 1: great lengths to undercut those assumptions. We know to always
29:56
Speaker 1: be prepared. We can't afford to slip up to us.
30:00
Speaker 1: Be yourself can sound like a dare a self declaration
30:03
Speaker 1: only truly intended for those who are assumed to be competent,
30:07
Speaker 1: qualified and powerful and it is that assumed competence we
30:12
Speaker 1: are constantly pressing up against, and you do such a
30:16
Speaker 1: beautiful job laying it out for intersectionally because you mentioned
30:19
Speaker 1: any person who has a piece of marginalized identity feels
30:23
Speaker 1: this in some way.
30:25
Speaker 3: I don't know.
30:25
Speaker 4: Have you ever walked into a room and assume that
30:27
Speaker 4: people think that you are competent and have checked all
30:30
Speaker 4: of the boxes and are imminently qualified. I mean, I've
30:33
Speaker 4: everything I have ever done. I have felt that the
30:36
Speaker 4: assumption is that I will have to prove all of
30:39
Speaker 4: those things even after I've been hired, Even after I
30:43
Speaker 4: have been, you know, given whatever responsibility, it still feels
30:47
Speaker 4: like every every single time I am doing the task
30:52
Speaker 4: that is being asked, that anything less than an A
30:55
Speaker 4: plus is a potential to merit or an opportunity for
30:59
Speaker 4: someone to say that I didn't deserve it or that
31:02
Speaker 4: I'm not up to the task. It doesn't feel like
31:05
Speaker 4: I ever have the luxury of an off day. And
31:08
Speaker 4: I think that is both about having incredibly high standards.
31:11
Speaker 4: I think that there are probably people who feel that
31:14
Speaker 4: who don't necessarily have the added dimension of you know,
31:18
Speaker 4: being in a woman in a space that has been
31:21
Speaker 4: classically dominated by men, or where men have.
31:24
Speaker 3: The vast majority of leadership roles, or.
31:26
Speaker 4: Being a person of color in a space where most
31:29
Speaker 4: of the people in leadership are white.
31:31
Speaker 3: But it all adds.
31:33
Speaker 4: Like I think about that story that I tell in
31:35
Speaker 4: the Likability Chap about being with Donna Brazil in the
31:39
Speaker 4: makeup chair before we're going to be on this week
31:41
Speaker 4: with George Stephanopolis, and there's a person who has been
31:45
Speaker 4: doing political analysis and working in politics for at this
31:49
Speaker 4: point the majority of her life, and she expresses to
31:52
Speaker 4: me that she's tired because she's an up all night preparing,
31:55
Speaker 4: and it's in myself. I think like, well, I'm relatively
31:58
Speaker 4: new to this, so my anxiety must just be about
32:01
Speaker 4: my own newness and my own perfectionism. And to hear
32:06
Speaker 4: someone who's been doing it for twice three times as
32:09
Speaker 4: long say, oh no, I stay up and I study,
32:12
Speaker 4: and I have anxiety about it even still, because I
32:17
Speaker 4: know that if I slip that it will be a
32:21
Speaker 4: deeper demerit, and that there are a lot of people
32:24
Speaker 4: who won't just see it as like oh a Lia
32:27
Speaker 4: messed up. But every young woman under thirty five, if
32:32
Speaker 4: every Latina must be less competent because I watched this
32:37
Speaker 4: one person not be as good as I thought they
32:40
Speaker 4: should be, and so you have that constant expectation. But
32:44
Speaker 4: it's not just about you, but it's about a lot
32:46
Speaker 4: of other people.
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Speaker 1: a young daughter. She had to have surgery and her
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Speaker 1: daughter said, is the doctor a woman? Her daughter said, oh, good,
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Speaker 1: and she said, yeah, it is good because you know,
34:12
Speaker 1: she had to study twice as hard.
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Speaker 2: And it's true, there's this constant like, we have to
34:17
Speaker 2: know a lot more. There's a constant pressure to be great.
34:21
Speaker 1: The constant chatter of women, you say, the constant chatter
34:24
Speaker 1: of how women lead impedes them from leading and trying
34:27
Speaker 1: to be everything at once. Women are straight up exhausted.
34:31
Speaker 1: And I laughed reading that, but it's so true. They're
34:33
Speaker 1: straight up exhausted. So much of my mind share at
34:36
Speaker 1: work is dedicated to how I'm being perceived rather than
34:39
Speaker 1: what I'm actually doing. And I'm wondering what price women
34:43
Speaker 1: are paying for internalizing these conflicting demands.
34:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a really deep priced.
34:48
Speaker 4: So I think again, you and I are so strange
34:52
Speaker 4: because our work is very public facing.
34:54
Speaker 3: So what I found interesting was realizing how.
34:58
Speaker 4: That weight and that anxiety is showed by a lot
35:00
Speaker 4: of women who work at tech companies or you know,
35:04
Speaker 4: work at consulting groups where yeah, they may give up
35:07
Speaker 4: public presentation now and then, but it's not it's not
35:10
Speaker 4: really core or central to the work that they do.
35:14
Speaker 3: So like I.
35:14
Speaker 4: Thought of this one woman who, I mean, she just
35:18
Speaker 4: she was ascendant at her company.
35:20
Speaker 3: People just she was lauded for the fact that she.
35:24
Speaker 4: Delivered across the board constantly at some of the best numbers.
35:27
Speaker 3: Was in a line of.
35:29
Speaker 4: Work where there were metrics right where she could could
35:31
Speaker 4: really say, this person's delivering, And she got all of
35:35
Speaker 4: this feedback around lowering her voice, taking up more space,
35:39
Speaker 4: being more direct and tell as I spoke with her.
35:43
Speaker 4: I mean, part of it was in the story she
35:44
Speaker 4: was telling, but part of it was also and you
35:46
Speaker 4: know this becau when you interview people, there's sort of
35:48
Speaker 4: like a deep sigh that happens over and over again
35:52
Speaker 4: that tells you that someone is really going through it.
35:55
Speaker 3: She was going through it where it's like.
35:57
Speaker 4: Even though she had the title, even though she kept
36:00
Speaker 4: being promoted, this constant like, you're doing great, but how
36:06
Speaker 4: about if you sat like this? Or you're doing great,
36:08
Speaker 4: but how about if you started asking questions more. It's
36:11
Speaker 4: like it's just like a lot, and it feels like
36:14
Speaker 4: you can't actually focus on the work that you need
36:16
Speaker 4: to be focused on because you're being asked to focus
36:19
Speaker 4: so much on the style. And I think there are
36:22
Speaker 4: women who are able to say, this is the workplace,
36:24
Speaker 4: this is somebody else's opinion, and I am going to
36:27
Speaker 4: do what I need to do and move past it.
36:29
Speaker 4: And then there are women like me who really internalize
36:33
Speaker 4: it as an individual and personal flaw, not that we
36:36
Speaker 4: are doing something wrong, but that we are wrong. There's
36:39
Speaker 4: something intrinsic about us that is wrong and not working.
36:43
Speaker 4: And if we could fix ourselves, then we could fix
36:46
Speaker 4: the problem. And I think that is one of the
36:48
Speaker 4: bigger points that I want to get through with someone
36:50
Speaker 4: who loves Women in the Workplace books and like read
36:53
Speaker 4: so many Women in the Workplace books, is that the
36:55
Speaker 4: challenge of some of these which are built around this
36:57
Speaker 4: idea of learning how to survive in different environments. They
37:01
Speaker 4: will help you arguably survive, The question is will they
37:04
Speaker 4: help you thrive, Like, will you actually get to show
37:08
Speaker 4: up better.
37:09
Speaker 2: Oh my god, wait, will you say that again? I
37:11
Speaker 2: love that.
37:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, that all of this Women in the Workplace book,
37:14
Speaker 4: A lot of the Women in the Workplace books, they
37:17
Speaker 4: give you the tools necessary to survive, and you may survive,
37:20
Speaker 4: but it is the question is can you thrive? And
37:24
Speaker 4: that in some ways, there's even research that finds that
37:26
Speaker 4: the more you've been exposed to these ideas, like the
37:31
Speaker 4: idea of leaning, in which I actually think there were
37:34
Speaker 4: many things about that book that were useful and helpful
37:38
Speaker 4: for a specific genre of person, that even being exposed
37:43
Speaker 4: to the ideas makes you feel that not only are
37:47
Speaker 4: women responsible for the problems and obstacles they run up
37:51
Speaker 4: against in the office, but that they are responsible for
37:55
Speaker 4: overcoming those obstacles, which makes us see everything as an
37:59
Speaker 4: individual problem as opposed to a system problem. And when
38:02
Speaker 4: you see think everything as an individual problem instead of
38:05
Speaker 4: a system problem, that's a great way of letting the.
38:08
Speaker 3: System off the whole.
38:09
Speaker 2: What role does appearance play in likability for women?
38:13
Speaker 3: Here's what I do know.
38:14
Speaker 4: I know that women are often evaluated based on their appearance,
38:21
Speaker 4: and that, for example, talking about a woman candidate and
38:24
Speaker 4: her appearance, whether you're saying she has the best hair
38:29
Speaker 4: and the most well tailored suits and she always looks lovely,
38:33
Speaker 4: or saying she's a sloppy mess.
38:35
Speaker 3: Just the fact that you.
38:36
Speaker 4: Are talking about her appearance ultimately leads to a demerit
38:41
Speaker 4: for women, right, that it changes the way that you're
38:44
Speaker 4: thinking about them, So you're not thinking about them in
38:46
Speaker 4: the context of their work or the context of their merits.
38:51
Speaker 3: You're thinking about them in this more superficial context.
38:54
Speaker 4: And that it is another one of those things where
38:56
Speaker 4: there's not really a foil for men, like in part
38:58
Speaker 4: because there's just not that much to say he combs
39:00
Speaker 4: his hair to the left or to the right, he
39:02
Speaker 4: wears a gray suit or a navy suit, Like, there's
39:05
Speaker 4: just not as much there. But just the fact that
39:08
Speaker 4: you're talking about a woman's appearance often is a distraction
39:12
Speaker 4: from the movement or self.
39:13
Speaker 1: It also seems like it's not what we value in men,
39:15
Speaker 1: so it really doesn't matter as much, and it's such
39:18
Speaker 1: a value that we place on women, and so it
39:20
Speaker 1: does have to play more of a role.
39:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's also you know, one of the
39:24
Speaker 4: things that I think was easy to misinterpret about talking
39:28
Speaker 4: about likabilities, like of course, everyone has to do some
39:32
Speaker 4: performance at work. You know, no one's like rolling in
39:36
Speaker 4: exactly what the like energy. I mean, maybe some people are,
39:39
Speaker 4: but that is I don't think any.
39:40
Speaker 3: Of us see that as a path to success.
39:43
Speaker 4: We don't want people to be like a wildly unfiltered,
39:46
Speaker 4: inappropriate version of themselves. And there are certain standards that
39:51
Speaker 4: we hold people to, even things like what the appropriate
39:54
Speaker 4: attire is in your industry or in your office. So
39:57
Speaker 4: sure those those are baseline. I think what you're trying
40:00
Speaker 4: to do, though, is make sure that those baselines are
40:03
Speaker 4: as level and as even as possible. So you know,
40:07
Speaker 4: just as I could tell you like, oh don't care
40:09
Speaker 4: you do you and you don't care what anybody thinks
40:11
Speaker 4: about it, it's like I could also tell you to roll
40:13
Speaker 4: into the office and sweatpants, and you can see how
40:16
Speaker 4: that goes, but it's probably not the wisest course of action.
40:20
Speaker 4: But I suspect also that you're asking, as.
40:23
Speaker 3: I see you there fully jeged with.
40:25
Speaker 4: Incredible makeup, is that clearly there's an expectation that women
40:29
Speaker 4: ought to self present in a way where it shows
40:31
Speaker 4: that they have thought about their appearance. I think part
40:34
Speaker 4: of what your play also identifying. Is it swings in
40:35
Speaker 4: the other direction where when you have put a lot
40:38
Speaker 4: of time and effort, when your look is a part
40:40
Speaker 4: of your thing, that there's also a tendency to believe
40:43
Speaker 4: that that that person may not be as competent or
40:45
Speaker 4: have the hard skills because they have all of this
40:48
Speaker 4: other packaging.
40:49
Speaker 1: You know, I was actually thinking of it so much
40:52
Speaker 1: in terms of social media. You know, social media is
40:54
Speaker 1: a part of my work. It's part of your work.
40:57
Speaker 1: Some of my girlfriends who that isn't a part of
41:00
Speaker 1: their work still have this public, sort of performative persona.
41:04
Speaker 1: And it used to be that just like celebrities were that,
41:07
Speaker 1: or maybe even politicians chose that, and now everybody has
41:10
Speaker 1: this public persona. I don't know, it just it feels
41:13
Speaker 1: like social media is the woman's domain.
41:15
Speaker 4: It is, I mean, and the majority of users are,
41:18
Speaker 4: especially on something like Instagram, which is very esthetically oriented.
41:22
Speaker 4: I mean, that's it's a women's mostly women on the platform.
41:25
Speaker 4: And I think part of what makes we all know
41:28
Speaker 4: about the highlight reel. We all know that it's not
41:31
Speaker 4: real life, and yet it's so easy to be comparative
41:35
Speaker 4: and it's not just you know, there's like the like I,
41:39
Speaker 4: as a mom, feel a lot of the anxiety around
41:41
Speaker 4: like you're doing like sticker activities with your kids, Like
41:45
Speaker 4: am I ruining my kid by not teaching the math
41:48
Speaker 4: with sand like wild things? Or am I a bad
41:51
Speaker 4: mom because they didn't have that poster that says.
41:53
Speaker 3: Like, it's my first day of this. My favorite color
41:55
Speaker 3: is this. I want to be this.
41:56
Speaker 4: I'm like, she's gonna hate me when she's eighteen. But
41:58
Speaker 4: that there's also like, oh, this person's giving this keynote,
42:02
Speaker 4: or this person got a brand endorsement, or this person
42:07
Speaker 4: got employee of the month. They got employee of the
42:09
Speaker 4: month at a place you don't work, like, you do
42:12
Speaker 4: not need to stress about that. And so I think
42:15
Speaker 4: it is about the fact that it used to just
42:17
Speaker 4: be that you First, I keep saying office, and so
42:20
Speaker 4: a few of us are going into offices, not even
42:22
Speaker 4: just because of the pandemic, but because so many of
42:24
Speaker 4: us now work as freelancers or have consulting gigs and
42:28
Speaker 4: these more. But like, let's just use the office as
42:30
Speaker 4: the context, understanding that not all of us go into
42:32
Speaker 4: an office.
42:33
Speaker 3: You should just walk into the.
42:34
Speaker 4: Office, and you compare yourself to the twelve twenty two
42:37
Speaker 4: hundred people who worked in your office. I think part
42:39
Speaker 4: of the danger of the social media comparison as a
42:42
Speaker 4: professional is the possibility of comparing yourself to an infinite
42:47
Speaker 4: universe of people who are on different tracks and accomplishing
42:52
Speaker 4: different things, and being recognized at different levels, and feeling
42:56
Speaker 4: like if you were not doing the most, that you're
43:00
Speaker 4: not doing enough. And that, to me is where that
43:04
Speaker 4: becomes really tricky. Is that you have to be very
43:08
Speaker 4: clear with yourself about why you're on and who your
43:10
Speaker 4: peer group actually is, because otherwise, when you're like comparing
43:14
Speaker 4: your life to Chrissy Tiggins, and that's just not a
43:17
Speaker 4: helpful model for most of us.
43:19
Speaker 2: And also maybe the aphorism less is more sort of
43:21
Speaker 2: rings true.
43:22
Speaker 4: This I found to be very helpful, though I've not
43:24
Speaker 4: been good at putting it into action, which is the
43:27
Speaker 4: people who are happiest on those platforms are the people
43:30
Speaker 4: who actually actively use them to share. I am not
43:34
Speaker 4: a huge share, but I'm actually on those apps a lot,
43:38
Speaker 4: just sort of lurking, and that means that I am
43:43
Speaker 4: doing more consuming on them than I am doing producing,
43:47
Speaker 4: and that is not what you want to be doing,
43:49
Speaker 4: Like it would seem that the people who actively use
43:52
Speaker 4: them to put stuff out into the world and to engage,
43:55
Speaker 4: and less of their time mining other people's content, having
44:00
Speaker 4: much healthier relationship with them, which I think is sort
44:03
Speaker 4: of great, interesting and potentially counterintuitive, but.
44:05
Speaker 2: Makes a lot of sense. I really like that.
44:07
Speaker 1: I agree with I think scrolling is the enemy. Can
44:10
Speaker 1: we get out of the trap? Do you see it
44:11
Speaker 1: getting better?
44:12
Speaker 3: Yeah?
44:12
Speaker 4: I think about this a lot because I have two
44:14
Speaker 4: little girls, and so I think about the fact that,
44:17
Speaker 4: first of all, I appreciate being realistic about it, Like
44:21
Speaker 4: I think that one piece of it is not imagining
44:26
Speaker 4: that I just will teach them to not care, and
44:28
Speaker 4: then they will go into the world to not care.
44:30
Speaker 4: My concern is raising two girls who don't care at all,
44:32
Speaker 4: and then I send them into a world that expects
44:34
Speaker 4: them to care. That's not setting them up for success,
44:37
Speaker 4: that's not setting them up to be themselves. What I
44:39
Speaker 4: actually need to do is reckon with the systems and
44:42
Speaker 4: the structure so that by the time that they are
44:44
Speaker 4: twenty two or you know, going into the workforce, that
44:48
Speaker 4: the workforce has actually changed in some really seismic ways.
44:51
Speaker 4: And so I think for those of us who identify
44:55
Speaker 4: as women.
44:55
Speaker 3: Part of that is being the leaders.
44:58
Speaker 4: We wanted and we needed, and not just replicating the
45:01
Speaker 4: leadership that we've seen before. I think it means being
45:05
Speaker 4: really good to each other, peer to peer, having some
45:07
Speaker 4: of those conversations, some of the language shifting that happens.
45:10
Speaker 3: Give me feel small, let me feel minute.
45:12
Speaker 4: I actually think that changes culture brick by brick by brick,
45:16
Speaker 4: having leadership inside of organizations understand that these things that
45:21
Speaker 4: are sometimes subtle are the most pernicious. That it's not
45:25
Speaker 4: always the things that are easy to walk into an
45:28
Speaker 4: HR meeting and say this happened, and it's very clear
45:31
Speaker 4: that it's a problem. It's a lot of things exist
45:34
Speaker 4: in that gray area, and you want to get comfortable
45:36
Speaker 4: grappling with the things that happen in that gray area.
45:39
Speaker 4: So yeah, and then I also think the more you
45:41
Speaker 4: see women in leadership positions and the more we normalize that,
45:45
Speaker 4: that itself is incredibly powerful and has the potential to
45:49
Speaker 4: change things. But like you, yourself is not the issue, right,
45:52
Speaker 4: Like that's that is the biggest thing, is like you,
45:56
Speaker 4: absolving yourself is a piece of it that is important
45:59
Speaker 4: for you, You and your personal self care that is not
46:03
Speaker 4: going to fix the problem at large.
46:05
Speaker 1: Since reading the book and identifying certain things, I've been
46:08
Speaker 1: trying to be the change Brick by Brick. I think
46:11
Speaker 1: it's possible the more we all sort of realize the
46:14
Speaker 1: unconscious bias we have because women have it too for
46:17
Speaker 1: other women. So the more we recognize.
46:19
Speaker 4: It, women have it for other women, and like parents
46:21
Speaker 4: who are parents have it for parents. White women have
46:24
Speaker 4: it for people of color. Like it moves in the
46:27
Speaker 4: number of directions and understanding it is part one and
46:32
Speaker 4: then calling it out as part two.
46:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got to call it out. Okay.
46:36
Speaker 1: So these are three questions I ask people at the
46:39
Speaker 1: end of every interview. This is kind of a bookie podcast,
46:42
Speaker 1: a book that shifted your perspective, something you think everyone
46:45
Speaker 1: should read.
46:46
Speaker 4: Ooh, that is a good I'm like looking to see
46:51
Speaker 4: if I have it for a visual I don't have
46:54
Speaker 4: it because I'm surrounded by children's books.
46:56
Speaker 3: Yeah.
46:57
Speaker 4: The Memo by Menda Hart is a really powerful book.
47:02
Speaker 4: So many of the books for women in the workplace
47:05
Speaker 4: assume that the woman who's reading it is white, and
47:09
Speaker 4: even I think it's almost even more important to read
47:12
Speaker 4: if you are a white woman, especially if you're a
47:14
Speaker 4: white woman who manages other people to understand what black
47:18
Speaker 4: women in particular are up against in the workforce, often
47:21
Speaker 4: the most ambitious and often the most undersponsored, under mentored,
47:27
Speaker 4: like they're just there is a gap between the ambition
47:31
Speaker 4: that black women have for themselves and the way that
47:35
Speaker 4: corporate America steps up to meet that ambition.
47:39
Speaker 3: So the memo mind heart, highly recommend.
47:41
Speaker 2: I've never heard of that book.
47:42
Speaker 1: I'm going to read it, and it makes me think
47:44
Speaker 1: of the Viola Davis speech.
47:46
Speaker 2: I think it was a golden globe except of speech.
47:50
Speaker 1: I listen to it all the time and she says
47:52
Speaker 1: the only difference between white women and Black women is opportunity,
47:56
Speaker 1: and it's so true. So okay, read that book. The
48:00
Speaker 1: memo this is a PSQ. Sometimes I do a PSA
48:04
Speaker 1: where I speak on things, but this is the PSQ.
48:06
Speaker 1: So I pick a card at random.
48:08
Speaker 3: My hands are sweating watching you shuffle.
48:10
Speaker 1: That deck Ooh, this is kind of personal. Do you
48:13
Speaker 1: fall in love easily? If so, what is your love language?
48:16
Speaker 4: I definitely fall in love easily with my husband. I
48:19
Speaker 4: knew when I met him, totally loved that guy, even
48:23
Speaker 4: love him after a year of quarantine with two children,
48:26
Speaker 4: and my love language is acts of service one hundred percent,
48:30
Speaker 4: Like like, want to get me to love you, take
48:33
Speaker 4: out the trash, empty the dishwasher.
48:36
Speaker 3: I'm here for it. What is your love language?
48:38
Speaker 1: I need physical touch and words of affirmation.
48:42
Speaker 2: I want someone to tell me they love me.
48:44
Speaker 3: My husband is the words an affirmation person.
48:46
Speaker 4: And I try, but I'm like, you are nice, you
48:49
Speaker 4: are no, You're such.
48:51
Speaker 2: A beautiful vocabulary.
48:53
Speaker 1: I feel like you probably write him letters or something.
48:55
Speaker 1: You are so great with words.
48:56
Speaker 3: That's a whole other podcast.
48:59
Speaker 1: Last question, what is the smartest decision you've ever made?
49:03
Speaker 4: I don't know if it is the smartest decision I
49:06
Speaker 4: have ever made, But what is coming up for me
49:08
Speaker 4: is I knew that I wanted to be a mom
49:10
Speaker 4: and I also want to have a big career and
49:13
Speaker 4: a big life. And I worried for so long that
49:16
Speaker 4: having kids would mean that I would have to choose.
49:20
Speaker 4: And it is hard, it is not easy. It does
49:24
Speaker 4: complicate things. But I'm so glad I have them, and
49:27
Speaker 4: I'm so glad that I did not put it off
49:30
Speaker 4: thinking that there would come a moment of complete clarity
49:34
Speaker 4: where it made sense and where it was uncomplicated, because
49:38
Speaker 4: I don't know that that moment ever comes, and I
49:41
Speaker 4: think I would really personally have regretted it if I
49:45
Speaker 4: had had waited any longer than I did.
49:48
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for sharing that.
49:49
Speaker 1: The reason I started this podcast the idea I heard
49:52
Speaker 1: a quote from Gloria steinem It said. She said, the
49:55
Speaker 1: most feminist thing we can do is share honest stories.
49:59
Speaker 1: So much of my life has been expanded by other
50:02
Speaker 1: women being honest.
50:03
Speaker 2: Your book was so honest.
50:05
Speaker 1: That answer was so heartfelt and honest, and I'm really grateful.
50:10
Speaker 1: You're just You're a culture changer.
50:12
Speaker 4: You are so wonderful. Thank you so much for finding
50:14
Speaker 4: the book and for reading it. I can't tell you
50:16
Speaker 4: how much it means to me to have you'd be
50:18
Speaker 4: so thoughtful about it.
50:20
Speaker 1: I can't wait to watch all that you do. I
50:22
Speaker 1: have a feeling this was just the first of many books.
50:24
Speaker 4: Birthday a book way harder for me than birthing anything else.
50:28
Speaker 3: I don't know about that girl.
50:32
Speaker 1: Alicia's book The Likability Trap is available online. Obviously, I
50:36
Speaker 1: highly recommend it, and you can also catch her reporting
50:39
Speaker 1: on MSNBC and on her podcast Latina to Latina. So
50:43
Speaker 1: navigating likability can feel like a minefield. I can't even
50:46
Speaker 1: tell you the amount of books I've bought over the
50:49
Speaker 1: years about how to best show up at work. Alicia
50:52
Speaker 1: even said she's bought so many of those books. I've
50:54
Speaker 1: been doing what I kind of think of as gender
50:56
Speaker 1: judo for years, and this is the first book that
50:59
Speaker 1: gave me real clarity. Maybe we're not the problem. Maybe
51:02
Speaker 1: the system's the problem. When men walk into the room,
51:04
Speaker 1: they're perceived as competent. When women walk into the room,
51:07
Speaker 1: they have to prove it. So what would happen if
51:10
Speaker 1: we tried to change the system, not ourselves,