Season 8 Highlights — and a Host Reunion! | Women at Work | Podcast

21:48Amy Gallo:I mean, I think that's ultimately what Anne's three questions were about. It's like, can I do this in a way that I feel good about? And that's not as strongly influenced by outside forces. And we need to recognize that even the ability to ask yourself those questions is a privilege. Yes, that's right. I think of the five of us, I'm currently the most retired of all of us. You think being an entrepreneur is retirement? I'm not the best entrepreneur. I could be working 40 hours a week on this business and I'm kind of like, how do I spend my time? And listening to this episode, the two women that you spoke to, Audrey and Donna, they had their shit together like so well.

22:33They both had a plan before they retired. Donna looked at a clock. Did she like down to the minute she planned her life out? They both had several things that they were doing. Donna, she said that she was six months out from leaving her job. And I was like, oh, my God, that resonates with me so much. I'm six months out from leaving my full time job. And she's like, I'm in the best shape ever and this and that. And I want to get to that point, too. And I'm thinking like, oh, I should have left this job with more of a plan of how I'm going to spend my days. So when I retire for real, I will do that.

23:06And right now that I'm at the six month mark, I'm feeling like I need to have more structure around it. Yeah. I took up a part-time job at a yoga studio because I'm like, I need to fill my time more. I have to feel more productive. I have to do more. And I also wanted a free membership so I could exercise because I need to do that. That's smart. Yeah. But financially in a bad position.

23:30Amy Gallo:But I'm glad you pointed that out about Donna and Audrey because I think most people probably don't go in. And Audrey didn't have as much of a plan as Donna because she didn't have the external support that Donna had brought in. But I do think most people go into retirement a little bit like, well, let's see how this goes. Yeah. And I think they all, both Donna and Audrey and Anne, all made a very strong argument for being more planful about it. And a lot of people un-retire. Like retirement contains so much. You know, my parents are partly retired, but they are busier than ever somehow. So it's easy to fill up that time if you're the kind of person who is like engaged and interested and just fills your day with stuff.

24:12Amy Gallo:Yeah. Yeah. My mom said she was going to read books for two years after retirement and then she'll figure out. But like within six months, she's on like the housing board in her town and helping to like advocate for, you know, affordable housing. And you're like, OK, I see how this is going to go. Exactly. When I sort of see what actual retirement is like, it actually looks very busy. Right. I don't think retirement is being idle. I think retirement is a change in your direction. And just living all kinds of lives. Yeah. Retirement colon living all kinds of lives. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. Here, here.

24:47Amy Gallo:I'm ready. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. What I would love to see from corporate America on that front is like making part time work more viable for more people. Yeah, because I think there's demand at all phases of life. But I think I especially see it in some colleagues who are approaching retirement and they just don't want to put in 40 or 50 hours a week. I had some colleagues I worked with at Bloomberg who actually alternated months. So one of them would work September and then the next one would come in and take over that same set of tasks for October, you know, and then they would flip back.

25:18And for them for a long time, for years, it seemed to work really, really well. And I think that, you know, whether it's something like that or whether it's working 20 hours a week, I just don't think that most companies are set up to accept that. But there's such a huge market out there of skilled people who would really like to work that way. And there is a market of those people and their skills and experience are invaluable. Right. And we have a labor shortage, if you haven't noticed. And we have a labor shortage, right? Yeah. Yeah. This seems like a good time to segue into one of the other episodes that really caught my attention, which was the most recent one on leading organizational change.

25:54Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. So, Sarah, we had you firmly in mind when we were planning that episode because before you had Georgia, you fought the good fight for parental leave here. And I think that might be one of the reasons you left. Yeah. Were you pregnant at the time? I was not. No, I was displeased and frankly embarrassed by our parental leave policy at the time. HBR had one week of paid parental leave for all new parents. And then if you were the birth parent, you could take seven additional weeks of short term disability. And then the seven weeks were partially paid if you were an employee for fewer than seven years and fully paid if you had been an employee for more than seven years, which was under a Harvard University policy.

26:42And actually universities universally have terrible, it turns out, parental leave policies, including, you know, a lot of the other universities in the Boston area. I thought, well, I'll build a case for this by looking at those and they'll have better policies and we'll be they'll be shamed into changing the Harvard policy. And it was like, nope, actually, they're all really bad. So anyway, I was not pleased by that. I didn't think it was enough time. And I just thought, like, we need to change this. And I thought at the time, to the extent that I have any political capital at this organization from the work I've put in for the last 11 plus years, I'm going to cash in every chip on this fight.

27:21And I think listening to that episode, I felt like there were definitely some things I could have done better in pushing for change. Like what? Well, like Amy G, like you talk about how you're a spreadsheet person. Guilty. Also a spreadsheet person. And I'm like, behold my beautiful spreadsheet. Yeah. And just change. Because what I did end up doing was I ended up finding other media organizations. And we were behind if you looked at other media organizations in terms of our leave offering. And I sort of thought that the data would just speak for itself. Yeah. I'm not sure I did enough to build a sort of coalition at the senior levels.

27:57I could have done more sort of, I think, to build a coalition among other employees. But I also didn't want to like start a petition because I was like, I don't want to be seen as a rabble rouser and I don't want to ask other people to stick their neck out. I might have failed and been seen as a rabble rouser anyway. I don't know. But I think that I could have definitely approached that more skillfully. In the end, the policy did change and it is a better policy now.

28:23Amy Gallo:But that point about being seen as a rabble rouser, I don't think we covered that enough in the episode, which is that you're expending social capital, but you are also changing your reputation, either for positive or negative, while you're pushing for that change. And you have to be aware of that. And also why you build a broader coalition. So you're not the only one carrying that reputational cost, if there is a cost as opposed to a boost. I also felt a little bit at the time like I can take this hit. I'm not going to ask other women who might not have as much political capital to spend it on this.

28:58Oh, that's interesting. I will take this hit if it's a hit. One thing that I always wanted to tackle in all my full time jobs was pay transparency. Yeah. I wanted to talk about my pay with my coworkers and I wanted my coworkers to talk about pay with me. and I never knew how to do that but like I had this idea I was like I kind of want to add my salary to my email signature wow and I want everybody else to do it too but of course that opens up a big can of worms but pay transparency was always one of those things that I'm like why are we so secretive in all of the jobs that I've ever been in why are we so secretive about how much money we make but I realize that not everybody feels that way yeah I think each of us are probably more comfortable on some issues than others.

29:43Like, I will carry the flag anytime for parental leave. And then you start talking about money. I'm like, money's awkward. Yeah, I know. Money is so awkward for all of us to talk about. I feel like I see the women at work, like newsletters. It's called How I Got That Raise. Yeah. And oh, my God, like the numbers are right there. And I'm like, damn, these ladies are making a lot of money.

30:05Amy Gallo:Yeah. We can't not talk about the body size episode. Oh, man. The stats in the opening about the pay gap between quote unquote normal size women versus women who live in larger bodies. It was so eye opening to me and so depressing that the stigma is so deep. I will never look at office cake the same way. Just some of those examples of like the comments that you hear in meetings when there is, you know, an office snack or some celebration like there's cake. and people are aware of who reaches for the cake and who doesn't, that act can signal so many things and make people go into these shame spirals.

30:47Hearing that story kind of stunned me because we're in situations like that pretty constantly. Like there's always food around. There's always talk about office lunches and snacks and exercising. And there's always like this little valence of, you know, morality attached to that.

31:03Amy Gallo:Yeah, Emily and I just had this moment just now where I brought cookies. I'm like, do you want a cookie? She's like, no. I'm like, are you sure? And she's like, I think this should be in the body size episode. This is very relevant to the body size episode. I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. Like, and you just don't even realize. No, but I do want a cookie. I just need to have it after we've done here. I mean, and the comfort we have on commenting on other people's bodies, particularly women's, and their eating habits. Yes. It's so intense. Intense. I think before I listened to that episode, I would have said like, no, of course, like I don't have any weight bias or body size bias.

31:39But then when Habiba was talking about going through the self-assessment and coming back that she was biased in this way or exhibited some implicit bias, I thought like, yeah, I do too. The way I talk to myself when I'm a few pounds heavier or a few pounds lighter, like I'm not as nice to myself when I've gained a few pounds. And I'm so congratulatory if I've lost weight, even if it was through not doing anything of my own, through not exercising or like it. Or just being sick.

32:09Amy Gallo:Yeah. I mean, that is that's the sickest thing to me is like the way we congratulate ourselves for losing weight because we were sick. Yeah. Oh, my God. So I recently came through a very stressful period and I dropped like 12 pounds. And who was in her closet trying on the clothes from the back of the rod and feeling pretty proud of herself? Thank God all those horrible things happened in my life. I mean, at least there's this, right? I know. It's just so upsetting. Yeah, I feel like this is something that I've wrestled with a lot in the past couple of years, both because when I was trying to get pregnant, I ended up going on a crazy diet to help.

32:54Anyway, whatever. I went on a crazy diet where I cut out a lot of toxic foods, quote unquote, lost 12 pounds and then got pregnant and then gained 45 pounds. And then that took a long time to come off. So my weight has been all over the place. And yes, the voices in your head that are talking to you are not your voice, but there are some voice that you learned. you know along the way and now I have a daughter and of course I'm like well I don't want her to hear this toxic language from me so even if some of those voices still talk to me I'm sort of like what can I exhibit in front of my child so that she maybe grows up with less of this because I don't think in our society we can totally block her out.

33:32No you can't but there's you know the whole body positivity movement I think has been huge. Body neutrality is something that has been helpful for me. Like I have just like if body positivity is for me a bridge too far right now, we can just be neutral. These are my legs. There they are. You know, and that's been something that's just been helpful for me in terms of like, I don't have to love them. They're just there. They get me where I need to go. Self-acceptance all the way around. It's helped me too. It's just, you know, there are certain things that just aren't going to change. Apparently my legs are never going to be long and lean.

34:04That's okay. Yeah. But one other thing that I liked about the bodies episode too, is the importance of having basically just generating more awareness about this because we can have all the self-acceptance, you know, in the world, but that will be hard to achieve and hard to maintain if you go into workplaces and people are still like weirdly judging you and making comments about bodies. So there were some interventions in the episode that I thought were really good. One just stood out to me where when you're reaching for that piece of cake, just like cheers and like nothing, no comments on what that food means or what eating it symbolizes because it shouldn't symbolize anything.

34:42And I think more like tiny little gestures like that can go a long way. Like neutralizing should be a communal goal, not just something like we individually are seeking to do when it comes to accepting our bodies.

34:58Amy Gallo:So as you all might remember, just as soon as the season closes, you start thinking about the next one. So we're already planning for our next season and have a few topics we're thinking about, particularly how divorce affects women at work, whether or not you need a personal brand. What does that mean? How do you build it? And I'm curious from Emily, Sarah, Nicole, what you would like to hear us talk about. Sarah? I have been writing a list. Oh, send me one. Did she say she likes Frenchie? Just type it up in an email. Type it up. So you guys have talked about health issues on the show before, and you actually had a great episode this season about working while having a child who's going through mental health issues.

35:42I just feel like I'm in a phase of life where more and more friends are either having health issues themselves. A friend of mine had breast cancer earlier this year, and that was really hard on her family. And then she's okay. She made it. But it was really hard. And then we have some other friends whose spouses have been diagnosed with devastating and very sudden forms of cancer. And like they were a two parent family, working family, and now they're just a single parent working family because their spouse was gone very quick. So to me, the health issues are very salient. And I would love to hear you guys talk more about managing that.

36:17In addition, I have two other topics. One is scheduling and rigidity and flexibility. Like I think this is such a big issue for so many women, especially women who are not part of the quote unquote laptop class who can zoom in. It's like if you have to be at your job and you have no flexibility, like how does that work? Especially if you're like don't find out until Tuesday that you're working on Wednesday. That's something I've been thinking a lot about. And then, you know, you mentioned personal brand and I feel like we're living through such a time of social media transition now where like these platforms are sort of either plateauing or they're starting to disintegrate or they've been shown to create mental health problems and people who use them.

36:58And I feel like so much of a personal brand is being on social. Yeah. And so I am very curious to know if you guys have thoughts on kind of when you have to be on social media for your job, but you really don't want to be. It's not good for you. Right. How do you manage that?

37:13Amy Gallo:Nicole, what do you want us to cover? Well, as soon as you said personal branding, I thought of something very different. And that might just be like time in my life and what my closest friends are talking about, which is women change their names and that affects your personal brand. And how do you handle that decision? I'm like having a lot of these conversations now with friends who are getting wed and some are changing their names, some are not. And we always have very interesting discussions about why or why not and how that affects their professional lives. So that is also a big part of branding that women have to consider.

37:47Separately, selfishly, I'm also interested in hearing from other women who are, you know, thinking about children. Just the decision to become a parent when your life has been so structured on your work. Basically, how do you make that decision? If it's a decision that you make at all, I don't know. Yeah. But that weighs on me. And I could imagine you all would treat that subject very gracefully and insightfully. You guys, I really want to be back for some of these episodes.

38:22Amy Gallo:We might have to have you back. Emily. I would, of course, love to hear more about entrepreneurship. I want to know how women who have their own businesses are like planning out their days in their weeks in their months in their years and how they're making it work for them. Whether it's we've talked about this before. I'm very extrinsically motivated. And so having this one employee for one day is like so helpful for me. But like anything like that. So I'm wondering how other women who are kind of doing it on their own are making it work. because I could use that advice myself. I also really found that organizational change episode very interesting.

39:03And I want to hear more examples of people doing that within their organizations. Like I want to hear how people did it, what they wanted to change, what steps they went through to do it. Like more of those like very tangible examples will be so exciting.

39:17Amy Gallo:I think we've talked about how that episode could have been like four episodes. I do think a case study would be so helpful to others. Yeah. These are all such good episodes. It makes me miss being on a team with you all so regularly because these are these are wonderful ideas. And I'm sure we're going to pick up on a few of them for next season. Emily, Sarah, Nicole, this has been a joy. Truly. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. So good to see you guys. So good to have you guys back. As you know, at the end of every season of the show, we like to leave our listeners with some additional reading, listening, and a sense of when you'll be hearing from us again.

39:58Amy Gallo:So help me do that. Nicole, why don't you start? So I'm going to tell everyone to subscribe to the Women at Work newsletter, which Amanda Kersey, our producer, writes. It's twice a month. It's free and you get resources, practical advice, personal stories to lift you up and move you forward. I think that's the tagline. But beyond that, it's just like a really fantastic resource for what Women at Work is up to, what HBR is covering in terms of gender. I love it because I get little snippets into Amanda's life. I learn a lot from that newsletter every time and I look forward to it. So plug that for everyone else.

40:33That was such a nice little plug. I highly recommend also the HBR Women at Work book series. There are three new books and they're being released on December 13th. They're available now for pre-order, Thriving in a Male-Dominated Workplace, Next Level Negotiating, and Taking Charge of Your Career. I'm really excited to read these. Also, until we meet again, there is the archive of episodes. I will say some of them I have listened to before, but they sound really different when you are, for example, suddenly a working mom. All those Working Parenthood episodes suddenly just hit my ear differently when I'm on the other side of it.

41:10So depending on where you are in your career, it can be worth going back and taking a listen. Then on January 9th, we'll return with another four episodes of The Essentials, which is our skill building series. Each episode, we go deep on a particular skill and we talk with a subject matter expert like a researcher and a woman working in a particular industry like, say, aerospace. And together we talk through the principles and mechanics of whatever skill we're covering and how they apply on the ground, on the job, what they really look and sound like.

41:45Amy Gallo:So actually right before this recording, we had a meeting to discuss what topics we're going to cover in those episodes. And we're talking about skills like office politics, decision making, the very sexy topic of project management. Which I'll take. Yes. Amy was very excited about project management. I'm very excited about that. And soliciting feedback, receiving feedback, being on the other end of that conversation. Those are such good topics. I can't wait to listen. Thank you. Women at Work's editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoke, Tina Tobey-Mack, Rob Eckhart, Erica Truxler, Ian Fox, and Hannah Bates.

42:27Robin Moore composed the scene music. And remember, Women at Work isn't the only podcast from Harvard Business Review. For starters, there's the HBR IdeaCast, which I used to host and hosted for about 10 years. It's a weekly interview show with leaders in business and management. I really miss hosting it.

42:45Amy Gallo:You interviewed me on that show? Yeah, it's still a good show. Even without me, you should still listen to it. I miss it. Finally, if you've ever wondered how to sustain women at work, subscribing to Harvard Business Review really is the best way. A subscription gets you unlimited online access to digital articles, editor-curated reading lists, the weekly insider newsletter, and charts you can use in presentations. The print and premium plans offer all those benefits and then some. You can decide which plan is for you by going to hbr.org slash subscriptions. Thank you so much for your support.

43:24Amy Gallo:All right, we've got to say goodbye. as sad as it is bye bye everyone that was a sad bye bye bye bye this was so fun bye ta ta this was so much fun I know this was fun so fun we should miss you guys we should reunite every single episode

44:00Thank you.