288. The pink ice cream maker disaster. PLUS! A.I. assistants, the glass cliff and managing friends at work.

0:01Coming up this week in work. A law firm marked International Women's Day by sending female clients pink branded ice cream makers. Some recipients loved it. Others said maybe next year they could add a hoover and a washing up brush. And an apron. So when does a well-meaning gesture cross a line into completely missing the point? And what if you could have a personal AI assistant that never hallucinates, remembers everything you ever told it and can answer any question accurately in seconds? Well, it's not Chachipiti, it's not Claude. It does exist, it's completely free. It's like having Mike Ross from Suits.

0:37More about how you can become Harvey Specter shortly. Goddamn! Do your goddamn job! And in Truth or Lie, we're looking at the glass cliff. The claim is that when women finally break through to senior leadership, they're more likely to be handed roles that are already failing. So are women being left to pick up the pieces, or is this just a bit of a conspiracy theory? And in this week's Workplace Surgery, One listener asks, how do you manage a close friend who now reports to you and has started undermining you in meetings? This is Truth, Lives and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture.

1:11Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a charter occupational psychologist. My name's Al. I'm a business owner. And together we help organisations simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures. Let's get into it right after a quick word from our sponsors. HubSpot makes impossible growth impossibly easy for their customers. And here's a perfect example. Lee, your turn. Morehouse College needed to reach new students with fresh, engaging content. But with a massive 900-page website, even the tiniest updates took 30 minutes to publish.

1:47Breeze, which is HubSpot's collection of AI tools, helped them write and optimize their content in just a fraction of the time. The results, 30 % more page views and visitors now spend 27 % more time on their site. If you're ready for impossible growth like this, visit HubSpot.com.

2:08Hello, hello, welcome back. I got my intro wrong, Leanne. I say, my name's Al, I'm a business owner. I'm here to ask the questions. I know, I forgot. I forgot. Anyway. You ask, I answer. There you go. That would be a great podcast name. What have you been up to this week, Leanne? I'm asking you this as if I don't know, as if I haven't spent every single waking second with you. There's no undertone there at all. Looking forward to a four-day week. That's nice. This week? Yeah. Why? It's Good Friday on Friday. Oh, it is! It is. So for half of where we live in Bosnia-Herzegovina, people aren't going to be working.

2:44The other half are going to be busy doing stuff, aren't they? Yeah, well, I think it's actually a third because I believe that Orthodox Christians have a different date for Easter. Oh, really? I think so. Shall I do some Googling while we're live? While we're live. This is happening live, folks. In case you didn't know, we live in Bosnia, Herzegovina. And if you didn't know anything about Bosnia, then it is kind of split into three, roughly. God, I'm going to get in trouble for this. But roughly speaking, it's sort of like a third of the country is Serbian Orthodox Christian. a third of it is Christian, Croatian, and a third of it is Muslim, Bosniak, which makes for quite a cool city, Mostar, because it's kind of split down the middle.

3:24So you go one side in Eid, you go one side, and there's lights and all kinds of stuff going on. The other side is just a bit... As a neutral, it's a very vibrant multicultural city to be in. Yes. Anyway, moving on from that. But no, it's true. Orthodox Easter is actually on the 12th of April. They use a Julian calendar and a different calculation for the spring equinox. Is the Julian calendar where you cut it into very very thin slices? Is that like a Julian calendar? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Anyway. Shredded. Lee, should we move on? Let's. Okay, so I think it's time for your favourite time of the week.

3:56It is time for the News Roundup, Leanne. Cue the jingle, Al. Jingle's been cued. What have you seen this week? I think we need some kind of doomsday jingle this week, please, because is anyone else just starting to freak out about the state of the world? Yeah. Like it's just like one thing after another, isn't it? I don't read the news. And that has helped me massively. I mean, I try not to read too much of the news beyond what's happening in the workplace news. But just some things you just can't ignore, Al. Oh, what's happening now? Well, Trump. He's going off on one. What's he done? He's just starting another war and being like, Europe, who's with me?

4:34And we're all like, ah, ah. Did you see that thing? I saw it on Twitter. and it's like it's um it got a couple like i think there's a french really sort of nerdy dance duo maybe in their 40s um and it's like trump asked trump going to war and then it just said the rest of europe and these two these guys are just what having a cigarette and he's a cup of coffee and they're like dancing away to this remix of like 1990s stuff and that's basically europe we're all just drinking coffee and going carry on mate yeah you're on your own yeah no absolutely so of course that's having a massive impact on oil prices which means petrol's more expensive and energy is more expensive and food's more expensive and this month in the uk council tax is going up water bills are going up then there's a whole ai thing i get emails like from from my ai education companies talking about the latest updates i'm like what the actual what do you mean there's something that can do that i'm starting to wonder if if i'm of any relevance importance to anybody anymore and then as if it can't get worse have you heard about the freaking UK cargo theft crisis.

5:38What? Somebody who has no business doing it is bobbing around Europe and intercepting UK-like lorries and stuff. And they've stolen like nine tons of Kit Kats. Oh, I did see that. And 35 ,000 pints of Guinness. What? How dare you, sir? How dare you, sir? So yeah, we're looking into the Guinness shortage of 2026. Oh man, that's even worse where we live because occasionally we see Guinness... It's hard enough to get anywhere. It's hard enough to get anywhere. from the fact we went to Croatia and they had, we were just over the border, it's about a 20 minute drive to get over the border and we saw two supermarkets with Guinness so we bought all of it.

6:13We bought all of it. All of it. We came back and I think we spent about 100 euros on Guinness. Yeah. But, which, I'd love to say we've still got loads left but we are down to our last four. And we don't have the money to replace it either. So yeah, back on the, on the, on the tea for us. And then, as if it isn't bad enough, there's one thing apart from the news roundup that brings me a lot of joy. Yeah. Scott Mills. I freaking love his breakfast show. What do you mean? What do you mean? He has been sacked. Something about like personal conduct. What do you mean? Not Scott Mills. And he's Eurovision.

6:52Oh, no. I'm honestly heartbroken. I'm honestly heartbroken. I think I'm more upset about Scott Mills than I am about the Iran war. Oh, man. I know. The difficulty is that this, we've got to be so careful. This doesn't age badly. Developing story. Developing story. We don't know anything else about it. We don't know. Just saying as an entertainment form, I enjoy it muchly. Yes. I think Tony Blackburn got sacked because he spoke out in defense of Jimmy Savile. And then he got sacked by the BBC and then he got reinstated. So we have to be careful that we are saying that we are devastated that the news that he is gone.

7:26That the show, that the content has gone. The content has gone. The content consumers, we'd enjoy consuming that content. but yeah he might have done something really really shady so um here's a question who's we were talking about last night who was going to replace him i looked and um according to is it bet fred the one that does that's everything um they said the two contenders are uh vernon k which we suggested yeah who else do you think sarah cox sarah cox she's my first pick you reckon she'll go back i just think it's like i mean we'll actually talk on this on the show today when something is in crisis, putting a woman in charge is often a good idea.

8:02Right. And I'm sure, you know, I know there was some cheating scandal with Vern a few years ago, but I think that all got resolved, but equally. Allegedly. Yeah, allegedly. But equally everything's going to get dragged back up, isn't it? Put Sarah in charge, don't I mean? Yeah, and as long as Sarah hasn't done anything dodgy. Sarah doesn't do anything. Sarah's a mum. She might have had a lot of fun in the 90s, didn't they all? I was a bit too young myself, but. I had such a crush I think it was my first proper crush Sarah Cox yeah also she's from Bolton as well which is which is lovely anyway anything else to add to that story yes so if like me Al you're feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment there was some advice from Dr.

8:47Emma Sepala Sepala Sepala Sepala is that Turkish? Turkish? I believe it's Finnish oh yeah and thank you to Dr. Amanda Super for posting this on LinkedIn do go and follow Dr. Amanda can I just say Dr. Super Dr. Super I know that's like the best character ever it's like a cross between it's like a cross between a Mr. Men character and a superhero yes Dr. Super brilliant anyway sorry go on Dr. Emma is a research scientist psychologist and best-selling author and fancy a faculty member at Yale she is what a real psychologist looks like let's be honest um she says there's a reason we're all exhausted and burnt out at the moment and it is because we're living through really intense and unpredictable times and the pace of the world and the uncertainty in it is just constantly demanding our attention and it's draining our nervous system and it's draining all of our energy she said as someone who has researched and written about how to attain psychological sovereignty here's what I think is the biggest mistake we can make believing we just have to push through.

9:58Side note, psychological sovereignty, unofficial word of the week, Al. Yeah, I like this. Yeah, I'd never heard of this either. So it's this, the idea is based on Emma's book, which is called Sovereign, Reclaim Your Freedom, Energy and Power in a Time of Distraction, Uncertainty of Chaos. Not succinct in title, but very clear. Yes. In what it means. At its core, psychological sovereignty is about having control over your attention, your thinking and your actions rather being pulled around by everything going on around you and it basically comes down to three things the first is attention where you direct your focus and what you choose to notice so you not looking at the news is you choosing not to notice the news the second is sense making so how you interpret what's happening so the story you tell yourself about it so for example if we do get kicked out bosnia that was just the way it's meant to be and our forever home is somewhere else and then third is agency what you actually do in response so if it's like me and Scott Mills it's just kind of cry a little bit and then just switch to Sarah Cox anyway Emma's point is that resilience is not built through endurance or grit it's built through small daily acts that regulate the body nourish the mind and reconnect us to ourselves and then she offered five do's and don'ts for building our resilience do you want to game it?

11:13do you want to pick a number out of five? we'll do the do's first no no let's just pick number three number three hydrate well oh I'm doing that right now Water matters more than we often realise. Hydration with pure water, fresh juices, coconut water or electrolyte-rich fluids supports the nervous system and overall vitality. Even mild dehydration can activate the body's stress response, putting it into a subtle fight-or-flight state. A 2019 study on humans indicated that even mild hydration changes blood flow in the brain and impacts mood. Lovely. So how about we go for number two on the don'ts?

11:49Number two on the don'ts. don't overschedule your life when every moment is filled there is no one left to care for your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs, leave space in your day, resilience grows in that space do you know, I think we are on the way to psychological sovereignty, yeah I honestly think we are because we're very keen on we call it checking out, closing the laptop lid, whatever like theoretically and so quite often after a busy day we'll just sit there and go i'm gonna sit and watch um silly stuff on youtube for a little bit or you watch a lot of um period dramas um and i think we're quite good at doing that i i think i think to be fair we both have we're both like almost 80 towards psychological sovereignty yeah i think we are i mean we do like you say we do spend quiet times we walk the dogs every day one of his will um i think one of them on there was eating plenty of fruits and fruit and vegetables which we do we had a lot of fruit vegetables yeah sometimes too much a lot of cabbage on them on sunday you're a bit of a sort of dummy didn't you yeah i'm not gonna go into what happened there but uh yes i i had to sleep in a different bedroom yeah i think i think we're almost there if you want a full list of do's and don'ts i will leave a link to emma's article in the show notes and to her LinkedIn profile as well.

13:14Do go and check it out. There's some really good advice in there if you are feeling a little overwhelmed. Lovely. Okay, so I want to talk about my, I haven't really got an article for you this week. I've got more of a kind of a love letter to a tool I've been using for about a year now. Okay. I know, I know. Is it Claude? No, although I mean Claude, we do have some nice conversations. We're tight. Yeah, he's my bro. No, no, this is actually, although it is AI, is actually something a bit different um this now stick with me i know that most people aren't as nerdy as me but this is what's going to give i believe you and i believe a bit of an edge at work the tool is called notebook lm you might have heard of it it's made by google um it's free um and the basic idea is this that it is an ai so it's like chat chibiti claude gemini but it is only trained on what you give it so you can upload your meeting notes you can upload research you can upload YouTube videos.

14:09You can upload company reports. You've got anything you want, and you can create projects for these. And you can essentially then go, right, tell me a bit more about it. Now, you can, to a certain extent, do that with ChatGPT or Claude. You can upload that, and Claude's particularly good at that. However, this can never hallucinate because it only uses the sources you've actually given it. Oh, that's good. It is really good. So, a couple of other... So, that in itself, I think is pretty cool. So, I use it quite a lot for... I uploaded the entire documents for something called Laravel, which is a PHP framework, which I like coding in.

14:39I upload the entire documents, and then I can ask, right, okay, what do I need to do about so-and-so? And it'll only bring it from that document source. But it gets better, because now they've introduced these, now let me just double check what they've actually called them, flashcards. And what you can do is you can say, I want to learn how to use, I don't know, Photoshop. so you go and find a five hour long video on photoshop and you upload that and then you give it the link for the photoshop docs and then what it'll do is it'll give you the flashcards and go if you wanted to add um an invisible layer or a mask how would you do it and then you go oh i think i'm gonna do it'd be like a quiz oh you do this and it goes you are right you are right it'll give you other things like it can give you this this this something i've been using quite a lot it kind of creates its own little podcast with ai um with ai um hosts i am i am actually irrelevant no no because it's really obvious this ai it is now nobody true true but they'll go the but uh but what you can do is listen to like 15 minutes on a particular chapter of something and it'll just teach you and it'll be like two people chatting away um i thought it was really really good i alluded before to mike ross you know mike ross just consumes information my favorite scene is like, I think it's episode one where he runs in with a suitcase full of drugs and it falls to the floor.

16:00And then he just goes, what if I told you that I could consume knowledge like nobody else? He says, is that a Barbary law handbook? Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you've not seen it, go and find it. It's a bit like that. This is basically Mike Ross on the web who knows everything about everything. Right, I've stopped being nerdy. Right, I'll stop. No, it sounds very cool. It sounds very, very cool. Like you say, I guess the only problem is if you're uploading content to it that isn't yours do you have permission to do that and i know it's kind of a bit of a gray area at the minute isn't it but yeah i think that's the only thing no i think anything that makes learning easier is is a good thing isn't it i agree i think it's really cool i've never tried it myself i might have a little play with it you should do you should do yeah yeah very good anyway what else you see my love um pink ice cream makers for international women's day I can kind of I can kind of see it where like the MD walks into the like the room of HR and goes guys I've had an idea right let's buy all the women in the company an ice cream maker for International Women's Day thoughts and everyone in HR is like um and then tries to talk about it but you're like no it's a brilliant idea let's just crack on um I hope that's how it went down I doubt he'd asked anybody at all to be honest I think he just probably cracked on I saw this in a really brilliant newsletter from Catherine Garrard.

17:22Do you remember Catherine Garrard, Al? Yes, I know the name. Yeah, Catherine is a DEI consultant, author of Conscious Inclusion. Oh, that's behind us, that. It is. It's a brilliant book. And very long-term listeners will know that she's been on the show already way back in episode 45. Oh, just babbies. Babies. Yeah. Her newsletter is called Crown Jewels and Whoopsie Daisy. I know. I know. And it's basically she'll share really good examples of DEI and then a whoops moment where things didn't quite land. This one was her whoops moment for March. So here is what happened. An offshore law firm called Harney's decided to mark International Women's Day by sending pink branded ice cream makers to female lawyers, clients and colleagues.

18:11This came from their managing partner. You can't make it up. His name is Ian Mann. No, it's not. Yeah, it is. Oh, it could have been worse if his first name was Guy, wouldn't it? Oh, bad Jim. Yeah, Ian Mann. Oh, no. He said it was about celebrating women across their network and machines retail for about$55 and came with messages like, pamper yourself every day. The reaction was kind of mixed. A couple of people really liked it, calling it the sweetest gift yet. Others weren't so impressed. one comment suggested maybe next year they could throw in a hoover and a washing up brush before adding i know harney's will be working towards equality in the workplace so why not post about the work you're doing to advance equal participation across your firm and announce your ambition for the coming year that would be a post i could truly celebrate beautifully said um and then ian mann being the um tone deaf dude that he seems to be replied he's working on a full full house cleaning kit for husbands for next Mother's Day.

19:15Oh, well, that didn't save it, did it? No. And do you know what? This isn't an isolated whoops from law firms. A lot have struggled with the tone. For example, CMS ordered its landlord to take down a beauty display offering Botox to female workers. For International Women's Day? Yep. Nice. Shoe Smith was rightly shamed for getting a panel of men to discuss gender equality. Oh, why? I mean, come on. Even if you have no idea, you must go. Yeah, you've said it all. Do you know what I mean? And then in 2017, a phone call with us offered female staff half-priced salad.

19:57Half-priced salad. That's so blessed. Oh, man. If there's anything you don't want half-priced, it's salad. Because you'd be like, well, where have you got the salad from? But anyway. Yeah, and I think it's also that it's a connotation of weight in terms of figuring looks rather than necessarily just having a poor food item half price. So apparently the firm told Roll on Friday, which I think is the publication this originally appeared in, we were proud to celebrate International Women's Day across all our offices with each location adopting different approaches to raise awareness about this important day.

20:34Mindful of the give to gain theme, we held events across the firm including team lunches and sharing cakes and gifts to celebrate contributions of women across our firm and the wider community. These shared moments reflect our commitment to fostering an inclusive, supportive environment where everyone can thrive and succeed. And this is where Catherine basically took it. So she said it's a classic example of inclusion being reduced to branding and merch instead of anything meaningful. She said, let's not forget the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Goal five is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

21:08because right now women only have 64 % of the legal rights that men hold worldwide. And that's in fundamental areas of life, including work, money, safety, big one, family, property, mobility, business and retirement. She then went on to say that the 2026 theme for International Women's Day was rights, justice, action for all women and girls. and that that's what made the pink ice cream maker a little bit off it's just that it's just such a serious thing isn't it when you think 64 of the rights of men just in basic areas of our life and in celebration of us as women and the contribution we bring to society we're gifted an ice cream maker yeah it's just awkward it's just really awkward Catherine does though give some really good tips for anyone who is looking to celebrate International Women's Day or similar events in the future and actually do it right.

22:14She says first avoid gimmicks if it feels like a marketing idea it probably is. Second build it with the people you're trying to support. Ask women what actually matters. Don't sit in a room guessing and definitely don't have all male teams making decisions that affect women. and third make the day mean something use it to launch or highlight real changes like parentally flexible working fair progression decisions menopause support matrescence is something that's trending at the moment helping women return into the workplace after after having a baby um all of those things are actually gonna gonna remove barriers so i thought that's a really great piece from katherine because it's sassy and it's funny and it's serious and it's educational so bravo i will leave a link to katherine's linkedin and her newsletter in the show notes it's a monthly thing so you don't kind of get flooded in your inbox and it's really good oh i like that talking about monthly things your linkedin af must be out soon it must be tomorrow tomorrow i know i know if you're not subscribed to that then people say very nice things about that as well okay so i think that's it for the news roundup we will be back after the break i felt like a Heavy on that.

23:26I feel a bit exhausted. Yeah, I know, I know. Well, we're going to go make a cup of tea. You do go do the same. You go have one of those Guinnesses. Yeah, one of those Guinnesses. We'll see after the break where we go back, where we talk about truth or lie, where I ask Leanne, I say something and I go, is it true or is it a lie? I'm still fluffing that, aren't I? I'll get better. Don't worry. See you in a second. Billion Dollar Moves, hosted by Sarah Chen Spellings, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination of business professionals. Join venture capitalist and strategist Sarah Chen Spellings as she asks the hard questions and learns through the triumphs, failures and hard lessons of the creme de la creme.

24:02So you too can make billion dollar moves in venture, in business and in life. Maybe start with episode 124, where you're going to hear how industry giants from Canva to YouTube define leadership. Listen to billion dollar moves wherever you get your podcasts.

24:20Welcome back to Truth or Lie. It's that time of the week where we take a popular workplace theory and ask if the research actually backs it up. This week, we're looking at a phrase that I've only just come across quite recently called glass cliff. Now, I've heard of the glass ceiling, and you probably have too. And just in case you haven't, that's what they describe as an invisible barrier that's said to stop women from reaching the most senior level of an organization, no matter how qualified they are. The glass cliff, kind of similar idea, but basically what they're saying is that women are more likely than men to be appointed into roles that are already in trouble.

24:49So they break through the glass ceiling, but then just to go off the cliff at the other end. Lee, have I described that correctly? And is this true or is this actually a lie? You have described it correctly, yes. And it kind of sounds almost like it could be a bit of a conspiracy theory, doesn't it? That we're just kind of setting women up to fail. The story of where this came from is actually quite interesting as well. It's a good example of psychologists seeing something in the news and going, we'll be the judge of that. so in 2003 this goes back a long long time a journalist at the times wrote that companies appointing women to their boards were seeing their share prices fall and the implication was basically that female leaders are bad for business right so then michelle ryan and alex haslam enter the chat they're psychologists at university of exeter and they looked at the same data but asked a different question what are the companies were already in trouble before the women arrived so what if it wasn't that the woman when the woman caused the decline but the woman was appointed at the beginning of one so basically someone's gone we're a bit in the shit here let's go and get this woman to take over and take and take the fall for it yeah basically and when you look at it kind of some some examples just around us there's quite a few theresa may oh yeah you know prime minister 2016 basically handed the job of negotiating Brexit even though she didn't support it initially and it was going to be impossible for anyone to do that job.

26:18Marissa Mayer was appointed CEO of Yahoo in 2012, inheriting a company that had been losing to Google and Facebook for years. And Mary Barra became the first female CEO of General Motors in 2014, just weeks before the company faced a massive ignition switch recall that became one of the largest safety scandals and automotive history. Wow, I think there was also Reddit as well. They appointed a female CEO and it all went a little bit south. Yeah, yeah. So it's certainly anecdotal evidence, but what does the actual scientific evidence say? We have more than 20 years of research now, so we can take a decent stab at deciding this is true or lie.

26:59So in terms of evidence for Ryan and Haslam, our psychologists that first took beef with that 2003 Times article, they published their study in 2005 they looked at 38 companies in the footsie 100 that's like the largest companies on the um stock exchange 19 of those companies had appointed a woman to their board in 2003 they matched each of those with a comparable company that had appointed a man at the same time so same sector etc and what they found was in the five months before the appointment companies that hired women had consistently worse share price performance than companies that hired men that was true what the article claimed but crucially the women weren't making things worse because after the appointment the same the same companies actually saw their share prices recover right so over time it got worse and then recovered so the women weren't the cause of the decline they were being brought in during one.

28:00So by 2016, the same researchers reviewed a decade's worth of research that had built on their original work. Again, drawing on FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies. They also looked at political elections and some sporting context as well. And across experimental studies, when participants were asked to choose between equally qualified male and female candidates, people consistently preferred the female candidate when a company was in decline but when a company was doing well there was no preference either way oh this is an experimental environment so the research at this point identifies something called the glass cushion so the idea that men have preferential access to stable roles whereas women are getting the riskier jobs.

28:49So they suggested that it may be, it's not just women getting risky jobs, but the men are being protected from them. Okay. So another study in 2020 pulled together 74 different studies over 91 separate samples. What's this called, Al? Longitudinal study, is that correct? It's a meta-analysis. Oh man, I need notebook LM to teach me about these. So again, they looked at experimental studies and they found a small but statistically significant glass cliff effect which again meaning that when you put people in a room and ask them to make higher decisions they do show a real tendency above chance to select women for high risk roles and that effect was very strong in countries with higher levels of gender inequality such as the UK and the US.

29:39They then tried to think about why this happens and one explanation is what researchers is called think crisis think female so the idea that in a crisis the stereotypical feminine traits so things like empathy and strong communication skills suddenly become more valued so women get selected another is signaling so organizations basically appoint women to send a very clear message to shareholders that something's changing we're really radically shaking things up we're appointing a woman to CEO. Crazy times. And the third is the uncomfortable one that perhaps women are sometimes selected as scapegoats.

30:18So they're brought in to absorb the blame, the decline, and then a man will come in and save the day. A more recent lit review also found that female CEOs have a significantly shorter average tenure than male CEOs. So they have about seven years compared to about nine and a half from men. And finally, a study of women in the Tunisian public sector found that those placed in glass cliff positions, unsurprisingly, showed higher rates of burnout, with self-confidence taking a direct hit. So yeah, the picture that emerges across the research really is that women aren't just underrepresented at the top.

30:58Some of the positions they do reach come with a lot of risk. Okay, so is there any evidence to show that this is not true? There is some evidence that tells a slightly different story. So the most direct challenge comes from some psychologists called Adams, Gupta and Leith. Just wanted to say Gupta. Gupta, that's a nice name. Yeah, in 2009, they set out to test the glass cliff specifically for CEO appointments in the United States. So they looked at 48 female CEOs across the S &P 500 and mid-cap and small-cap companies and they did it over a long period of time, 92 to 2004 and they compared that to 1300 male CEO appointments in the same industries to try and get a direct comparison they found no evidence of a glass cliff in fact in the 120 days before appointment the share same price performance of companies hiring women was actually slightly better sorry the share price performance of companies hiring women was slightly better than that was hiring men, not worse.