It just about the problems. Its focus on solutions, and i love your key insight for just that we tend to give advice to women and the resulting books and conferences telling them what they need to change. We need to negotiate more and we will never get the corner office. But what you point out is we are not the ones that are broken. Whats broken is the workplace and as we know they were designed by a man for men when women try to act like men it hasnt worked out well for us and i love how you put it. We need to call a timeout on the women fixing epidemic and as you point out, gender and quality isnt just about women. It isnt just about women but its all of us and about making the workplace better for everyone. So thank you, welcome. Your book provides a guide. Why dont we dived right in here. If you could share with us what is your own background that brought you to this place . Guest its funny ive been researching this for many years looking at why women are not moving at the same rate as men. When i started out many, many years ago, it is when the lehman was very popular and that is rooted in the use of solutions. We were asking women to do more and fit in more interested in but quite frankly they really are not valued, so when i was researching it, i was looking at what women need to do differently and why they were not advancing and very quickly in reviewing the literature i found in terms of the leadership capability, problemsolving, how they engage with managers and police and a lot of that was new to me. I didnt know that if you take networking as an example, women are told to attend networking programs and learn how to network and theres a perception they dont do that well because they dont have the same access as men and thats an example of how they dont have the same access rather than digging deep to understand what the problem is and why women are excluded even when they have access they dont benefit the same way so very quickly my Research Found actually when men have everything they need to succeed and then some. Its more that the workplace is were designed by and for him ideal worker that tends to be an ablebodied white male and most women do not fit that ideal prototype so it creates challenges. But the thing that is really interesting i found the prototype they found a lot of challenges so my book outlines the standard that actually what we need is the freedom to be valuable and we need workplaces that are designed for difference quite opposite of what we have today. Host tommy about your background and how you got interested in the topic. Guest i have bee had been wg in Human Resources most of my career and what i found consistently as gender inequality and i became interested in how workplaces led me to want to understand this issue and so its something ive been looking at the last 17 years so cross ive been trying to understand what it is about the workplaces that dont support everybody to succeed in an equal way and so researching this it became apparent that there are solutions out there so for me it is about trying to share that with everybody so they understand when it comes to inclusion and equity that is what ive been trying to share as a researcher and practition practitioner. Host im glad you brought up the point about how Much Researching has done because what they found as you talk about a lot is just wrong and you just referenced a few points. Are there areas where it says when men act in a certain way that is incorrect . Guest to do something we are not asking men to, we really need to think about it. When it comes to sort of leaning and i think the book was written in a time and place where they wanted the solution and liked the idea of a. It discriminates because they were not designed for differen difference. Was this sort of ideal. A. The more challenges you are going to face and that is something that we all talk about. Organizations are inherently set up for this ideal prototype to succeed and that creates a lot of challenges for anybody that might differ in the ideals and so i think that it is to think about the solutions and do any of these works because a lot of them dont they just take for example the idea that they dont ask for pay rises and the pay gap and there is a great study that shows that is not the case. They asked for pay rises just as much as men and part of the reason for that is true discrimination but also women are penalized when they ask because they are asserting themselves and find the standards and almost thankful that you have a job so when they come in there asking for what they are worth, they are penalized because they seem to be asserting themselves. Not afraid to ask to do things to fit into the environment and number two, to look at the solutions than to say do they work and in most cases, they dont because they are not addressing the underlying system which is the policies, the processes in terms of the daytoday behaviors into some of the personal belief that the employees have really value people differently and values mean more and thats what creates the workplaces. Host by no other research the site talks about when women seek more than men in the business setting a. Of terrible thing when im back at work. You touched on one of his corporate conformity mind. They have to live up to the ideal of the standard, the maximum standard in terms of not just how they look but the middleclass ablebodied males. They might be seen as competent but they are not likable because to be likable, you have to engage in behaviors we typically associate with women when they defy the standard of what it looks like which is being made maternal. They are really going to be disliked. So there is a tradeoff they have to engage in the behaviors but then when they engage in a more feminist behavior to be likable they are not seen as competent so its a tradeoff between likability and competence and creates challenges early on a. I would say one of the big challenges into the whole reason i wrote this book something i discovered in my own research as a believe. So they dont have different experiences and with that kind of logic we are denying the inequality and it makes it really hard to solve and so while we say what youre going to encounter when you leave and given tandgo into the workplaces conditionethat isconditioned ex. The conditioned to believe that and it is a meritocracy and another big before. It is to discriminate and you can do everything right and still not advance because you dont fit the prototype and you sort of have to juggle things like this to try to fit in so the best thing people can do is arm themselves with the awareness of how they dont work for everybody in the same way and how you navigate is the most important way of how we change and accommodate the difference and work for everybody. Host throughout the book it brings home the default and you talk about the don draper and the white male and that is kind of the default that means women or anyone that do not conform to that are not necessarily the other and it really came out. You have a passage in the book where you talk about how child care benefits if we were actually creating a workforce from scratch right now for all of us, all of those things would be built into the workplace but because they are the other end of the workplace didnt start with women in mind all of those are seen as benefits, and your point is they shouldnt be benefits, they should be part of the fabric of work. Can you talk about that a little . Guest i was in denial about the challenges and i see the standard sort of work for them. It actually works for a very small number of people and even then it requires for example that of men dont talk about having to balance fatherhood and working lives and that men are silenced and engage in some of those behaviors were they have to sort of tolerate those behaviors even if the banks are uncomfortable. When it comes to motherhood there is what drives me crazy but its a sport of womens problem. So how we can approach it and even then it is and how do we make the workplaces more apparent. Its okay, how do we apply to help them fit into this Work Environment and the reality is if wasnt designed for me in the first place. Its fixing something that was originally broken. They dont talk about them enough. They deserve the workplaces that value them and the workplaces need us. There is a great study by the Federal Reserve bank of st. Louis which found a 30 year period the mothers of two, so its no surprise we know what it takes to juggle all of this but people are often chalked because its one of the most productive workers. They were not designed for that and so it is less about slapping on a Flexible Work policy. They may have the opportunity to engage in Flexible Work but you can have all those policies in place. All of my work in the whole book talks about culture we look at these periods in the daytoday moments if your boss is sitting there saying its hard to advance those on a reduced schedule where we are going to denote you to the sort of lonely role because you were on a reduced schedule, those are all sorallsorted and thereallsort d its something called the parttime penalty who have this access to the longterm Career Opportunities and overwhelmingly that is two thirds of all parttime workers and so the challenges show up in those daytoday moments. Policies and processes are managing disorder challenges and considering the identities outside of work. Host i could have told you as someone thats hired hundreds of people in my time and also as a mother of two, i totally believe mothers are productive and lets talk about the solutions here. You talk about cultural change and also about leadership. What is the balance to get to the right place in the workplace do we need a legislative change, its all about cultural change, do we need the law. I believe it is an invitation to a. To that leadership when we think of what goes on, we are looking at the leaders and many of the leaders today are in denial about the challenges and most underrepresented groups and organizations and if they do not understand the barriers and are taking steps to remove the barriers and most have been in the daytoday moments is when a moment there is a sexist comment or Office Banter that marginalizes employees at work. So thats the moment is and outside of legislation, which i dont really cover in my book because to me i m. Looking at the workplaces and how they can take action and what they can do today. For me simply managing those moments is something every reader can do for you when you see discrimination and marginalization and exclusion it is your opportunity to talk about it and use it as a learning moment to reset the standards and behaviors and organizations. The challenge to do that well we need the leaders turn over the barriers are so they know what to Pay Attention to and what to look out too. In order to know the barriers which i recommend reading my book, to do that you have to disrupt your own denial and think about as a leader how am i in a position of privilege and if it makes it that much easier to advance if you are a woman and a leadership role you need to consider that and understand that area in the organizations. But if you are a man youve got your masculinity in common and also middleclass and able so we need to think about what you have in common. Its important to mention nobody is saying that these type of leaders havent had to work hard to get where they have. Understand the privilege and how it makes it that much harder for anybody else to advance and get to know the barriers and manage those moments everyday. Host so much of what you are talking about is unconscious bias and some of it is outright when you are talking about the barriers. You mentioned the 17 barriers. Can you talk about the few that we have not hit on . Guest thing i will say to point out is im not a fan and i think its an important point when it comes to the barriers because Research Shows that reason is if you are raising people and telling them it is unconscious and they feel they dont have to do anything about it and there is another study that talks to this and the research by my university has now found what we need to do is to shift people from unconscious bias training to the decisionmaking and that is what my book tries to do by outlining the barriers and showing how it shows up and what you can do to navigate and prevent it from happening again. What can you do a round about . All are entering the workforce with the winners because what we find is within the first three years of working life, confidence jumped by more than 60 in terms of their ability to reach the sort of Senior Leadership position. It drops by more than 40 and that is a want. If they are told and the reason is not going to the challenges youre going to encounter because you start to think is it me or is it my workplace and you grapple with the sense that maybe i dont fit in here. Maybe i dont cut out for the corporate life and those are the challenges we see early on as the nation has come for me or performance tax. Because they ensure the process in terms of their behaviors but they also just have a look. How they look. Women have to work that much harder to be seen as constant or capable of. That can create a lot of challenges and then as you approach the motherhood, you see a whole bunch of challenges that are not designed to mothers and one of the keen reasons for that is you can become a mother it is the most prototype that you can be and thats why pregnant women try to hide her pregnancy or go to work when they are not feeling well. Ive got a great story about a colleague who was told by her boss now because she was pregnant she was seen as less capable and less confident so she needed to mean anything further and saw what happened as she was already performing at a higher rate and she got signed up for basically overworking by her doctor saying we are damaging our health and putting our baby at risk. This is the tax are bound motherhood and a lot of people may be familiar with the penalty and it plays out in the question because they dont look like the prototype and people have a lot of stereotypes so we see that playing out in terms of the reduction in wages so theyve estimated they are controlling all of the usual factors were they face a 5 reduction in wages and we really see that play out and its ironic we are penalizing the most productive workforce which is crazy. Those are challenges mothers experience and then when you look to what i see as the last phase of their career one of the challenges is once youve broken through that class ceiling that is just simply not the case because every day they go into the workplace and provide divide standard for what the leadership looks like so they faced numerous challenges like backlash and in a way that they are undermined or have the capability or where people dont supporsuffer the leadership poss and also see it played out and we label those like the sort of turns that makes it very hard for them to lead in a way that isnt associated with that. Its important to realize for women when you are reading this book ipocket is hopeful its a f a roadmap you can sort of see your sel self in sort of past experiences and then see your self in the future. Some of the barriers that might be coming up to me and it really helps i think to present that internalizing process we talked about before but seems not very confident its important that you broken down these invisible barriers because when we talk about gender inequality especially in the past couple of years theres been a focus on me to. They are interrupted three times more and the barrier that you talk about is backed up by a research but these are the things being ignored or left out of the conversation all of these but they sell 3540 years ago. But you add up all of these invisible barriers and it leads to the lack of opportunity and recognition for the women in the workplace. I want to ask something about quotas because there are a number of people and countries where theyve instituted quotas. You have strong feelings about that. Why dont you explain . Guest its funny because people love quotas and i always feel the need to apologize. I used to have a strong opinion for transparency, and then within researching the challenges women experience, and also men, i came to realize the damage that the quotas do and the reason im opposed to them is for a lot of organizations this is the go to solution. Its to mandate a certain percentage or cut copy and paste and hold the women accountable that they themselves have no hand in creating and we see that happen all the time and the reason it is damaging. I really found at the barriers compounded through the quote us and what we see is when women already have the legitimacy called into question because they dont fit the prototype so it is assumed they are less capable. Women have to work that much harder but when you cut copy and paste into the leadership position she is seen as having that role because the organization now has diversity and inclusion quote us and so instantly everybody questions the capabilities and calls into the legitimacy to be in that role and faces tremendous backlash and its very damaging because they question themselves and whether they truly are ready for that role and this plays out where the number one advancement is that of women because they diversity inclusiothediversity e that focuses on women and so for me its the ultimate solution. Theres this idea that we are going to advance into these divisions and the problem will be solved. Its the only way we are going to fix the environment of the leaders are never going to get it, but the reality is it isnt something we talk about a lot so you see the lack of sustainability in the copy paste solutions. When you put a woman into the leadership role there is something called an implicit quote us and we have to make sure 50 less likely to hire another woman and weve also found they are 45 more likely to be dismissed regardless of the performance and they are around 60 more likely to be replaced so its not simply putting women into leadership positions but simply not true and my main issue is they dont work. Not only are they damaging but they are not sustainable. It is less about looking at the scoreboard and representation and more about looking at the cultures of equality. In the environment where they feel like they can see themselves and be valued for that which is known men are twice as likely. For me its about taking a longterm approach to fixing the workplace. Host lets unpack that for a moment. This is something i dont work with corporations on gender in quality and very often the leadership will fade. We just cant find them and what i always say to them. The leadership is 80, 90 male. Its not that they all want to grow up and have babies. You need to look at every single level and see where the problem is in the organization. And i think thats what you are talking about, it leads to more innovation and more women being promoted. It kind of all comes around to that success being a longterm proposition but i also love about what you are talking about is that longterm yes it is a number of years but if you look at a law firm, consulting firm, business where you are bringing people in the entry level within a seven or eight years as entry level people can become senior people. Guest we looked at the Energy Sector and that is something i could talk about all the time. Organizations that do those well in terms of getting into their Organization First they have the right environment so its easy for them to attract women into the organization. Women know, they were smart. They look like they give you the ranking of the most equal Work Environment. We know the organizations that support us and so those are the organizations that are going to attract the best talent in all of the represented groups and so to me youve got to create the right conditions to be successful so that is important as a starting point. Second, they say when we cant find what they are really saying is they cant. How many have exposed underrepresented groups in terms of qualified able candidates . You can host an event and expose your soul to a broad range of qualified capable women from a range of different sectors and really try to expose yourself to different and ensure the capability does exist out there its just that youve not been exposed to it. When we find is when they build networks and it comes time to hiring a leader they know capable qualified candidates and that is something every single leader and organization can do today. You can actively seek out within your organization or externally, someone you can groom ideally to take the role when you leave and its not to say they wil look ae quota based. That isnt what im saying. Its about finding a highly experienced candidates in the same reason in this apartment it the same reason they need to do to the underrepresented groups and so i really see this playing out in the organizations where its actually because you are not exposed to them. Its just you have not reached out or made your mission and that is something that is true. They dont have the exposure to those candidates its about the bias and if you can explain what that is and how that plays out. I talk about this and other particularly which is where i grew up and for me, id have to check my own privilege and understand how being a white woman its that much easier for me compared to a woman of color were from different minority groups because they are not a uniform group and thats an important point but specifically in the buck for every barrier i talk about how different compounded the challenges. So the more barriers going to that place and whats really important for me is when we think about when and how women support the women that work. They have to be prepared to get to the women of color. Its how it creates the barriers and how they have a role to play in removing the barriers and so we see this all the time when it comes to that sort of racism and gender academics of the engendered racism and is a whole new experience. Something simple you might be defining what the standard looks like for women generally. But they have to overcome both racism and sexism and an interplay of the two so to overcome the workplace is its the stereotype so when they speak of it is much more noticed and heavily penalized because they have to think about him ony activating the gender stereotype or will it be seen automatically even if i am just observing myself as a standard way so they carry the double burden and that creates a heavy load. To understand how they show up. I talk about it i in the book wn you look at the history of feminism it was a long time ago and we are not interested it was very much you see that with the bucs that are most likely to advance organizations because they are in common with the prototype into the data supports the claim and so its important that we think about how we create an environment that ultimately the whole setup in the pacific doesnt really work for anybody. Its less about the organizations designed for one particular prototype and more about the organizations that are designed around values like kindness or empathy or innovation or creativity and giving people different ways to engage their behavior. Im not saying all masculinity is bad or femininity is good. It might occur to the appropriate in the situation too engage in behaviors that this is about getting both the freedom to engage in a wide range of behavior to be as effective as possible and that is something we need in these Technological Advancements that are coming our way and are going to transform the way the workplace is the. Host can you talk a little bit about id love for you to give us some specifics. What does that actually look like . Guest i talk about this in the book because i think that its really important. The key to this is allied ship. When you know what your privileges, i know that even though it is hard for me is that much harder for women of color so i can make it my mission for those in the ethnic minority groups and supports them, mentor, coach them to take more than day and have the position to advance when i leave and that is exactly what im asking men to do acrosstheboard so you can pay it forward in that way. I think the key is also knowing how they play out differently so like i talked about with the angry stereotype when that plays out, i know that in passing his people sort of brown or step back or go quiet that is the opportunity to lean in and amplify the message and support and knowing shes probably going to be paralyzed. Once you know the barriers are you know where you can play a role to amplify them. One thing i will say its important when you are spending the privilege by either calling of a beer or amplifyin amplify r messages were advocating for the colleagues were making them aware. Its important not to approach it from the position of im helping you because we see that a lot of the current Search Engine or equality efforts particularly with men when they advocate it is seen as helping the Disadvantaged Group and that isnt the case. It was more in the daytoday. When you witness. Com it has the same detrimental impact as if you have experienced it yourself and that is because most people dont like to watch her colleagues being discriminated against or marginalized. It creates a hostile Work Environment. This is about creating the environment that works for everybody and. That is the key to this is realizing its probably everybodys job but it actually says to benefit everybody. Host you may get the point you dont want to appear to be less patronizing or like you are trying to help someone that may not actually want to the right way to do this is tha to have a conversation privately with a person . Hell do you support them in a way that works for everyone . Guest i think youve got to do the work. I am very capable just as i am. I need men to route of the barrier so for example in the gender norms is a label and which is daytoday discrimination this i walked into the kitchen at work and my boss picked up the towel, through the. In that moment i have a choice i could either stick up for myself and my gender which is a core part of my identity, or i could sort of play along but then i would be mocking a core part of who i am so i turned to him and said you know what, you have two hands, why dont you wash the dishes yourself in that moment he said this is why i hate working with women because they cannot take a joke so that was my very first day as a manager and thats an example of a negative. Its these moments that add up if it makes you question your legitimacy and if you fit in. Research talks like somebodys coming in your workplace and you hear it and ask people and they say its not me. Its a background noise and is a its to be an ally. Any of them could have turned up ttothe leader and said that isnt cool or dont do that. They have to know that the barriers are. Host the anecdotes that you told probably every working woman can relate to because thats happened about a thousand times or Something Like it but the key is for one to recognize that its wrong and to call without. Host it easier for the protective power to call without and i would say its hard for people from marginalized groups to do that. It is a privilege in and of itself so its easier to do if you do that, its powerful. You are resetting the norms and the acceptable behaviors and its a powerful thing to do. Host you went over this relatively quickly earlier but you said there are three phases of the career into different obstacle. Lets walk through that so people understand where you are going with that. Guest when i started researching this, i assumed women followed the same career path and it wasnt until i looked at research i studied that when men tend to follow three distinct phases throughout the courier so when we start out its call tits called the idealc achievement in the research and the reason is i was going to work this is not going to meritocracy is and we believe it might have been to some people but cant overcome if so its a beauty. What we find is that dropoff in confidence. Thats about 24 to 35. Host i hate having hard winds but its roughly if you encounter some of those we like they come form of the. But look through the courier and they reappear in most likely to confront that throughout your career just the ease of then around you sort of enter the essays were keen to approach it and positioned to the perfect storm. Its called the endurance they the barriers. That. If you sort of the domestic so that is difficult for women to survive and if you do you get into the final phase that is known as the contribution phase and this is what makes women so remarkable is women who do survive, they want to contribute and make a difference they want to make it easier for the next generation. What is amazing is we still have to navigate the barriers but they dont want to come to work and just do their job. They want to make it easier for the next generation and thats incredible. I talk about how hard it is to do that to navigate all the barriers and to then try to make it easier and contribute to the next generation. I think its important that they understand how its different from men in that way that they can support the development. Host there is an important point when we talk about the phase in the middle because so much of what we hear is this is when women are having children, families, and there is so Much Research that shows us women who choose not to marry or have children face the same kind of career gap in that same age group so that expectation is put on even though they are conforming to the stereotype. Ive been in loads of meetings with special planning so probably shouldnt put in that role. Ive been in more meetings than i can count. Here is a great opportunity for somebody else would say suzanne would be perfect for that or you know what, suzanne has a baby at home, she isnt going to want to travel or i heard her husband has a great job, shes not going to want to put in that many hours. Theres all these assumptions made and these opportunities that they would be great for our not even presented to them so you make this point and then dont make assumptions on her behalf. Host International Assignments are a great one. They need the experience because that is how you learn that men are much more likely to get those opportunities to make these assumptions about the capabilities and i would say you can be penalized with all of the motherhood of penalties without even being a mother and so that is why its important that we start to unpack that and those are critical because without them it is easy for the leaders to lean on and give us things like she needs more time in her role or catchphrases to prevent a woman from advancing when in reality she doesnt have access to those opportunities in order to move up and so it is about how can we afford the same opportunities we are according men and really invest in them and understand what it is we need to do to help outside of work and also increasingly men want to be at home with their kids and sort of involved fathers and talk about that so we need both sides. Host this is the big question. How do we convince men that this is their issue . They know they care about family time of the draper model, the white male, they see this why should i give up the power i have to let him these other folks if it is going to take away opportunity for me. Its showing there is a business imperative they are more successful and innovative, the return on equity and proves. When it comes down to those positions of power, what is the reason that will make them understand and why they should allow women through the door as well . I want to acknowledge today a lot of the work hasnt been inclusive to mend so we havent been speaking to the barriers everything from silencing men at work and living up to the ideal and the challenges from the breadwinner image and associated costs an than that, the silencig that happens when they conform to this like you followed my example of the boss throwing the dishtowel. The reason i say that is inherently misogynistic. We dont have a Business Case yet we require every other area. The Business Cases that show the diverse organizations and more inclusive leaders are better across the board in terms of innovation and creativity, productivity, revenue growth. Its better to have a diverse team because your customers are not the same. A Dangerous Team to meet a sort of global marketplace, even parking the business page, one simple fact i found in my research that at least in the work that ive done that brings it home theres an assumption that this idea is something we need to address. The reality is it doesnt. I had this question and said it doesnt serve you today because you dont have the diversity to be an Effective Team because you are thinking and acting in the same way. You do the sort of internet of things and at least 60 of jobs the next three years according to the World Economic forum are forecast to change for the new different types of skills that and effectiveness in being more inclusive and engaging in behaviors that we typically associate with Women Leaders and Transformational Leadership and so i researched this myself and asked 120 liters, men and women in an organization what ar are p five capabilities required and things like achievement results and collaboration, the typical behaviors on the World Economic forum site and i asked out of the top five how many do women have today and respondents say four out of the five top capabilities required and both men and women and both men and women say that they have one out of five and the reason for that in the 1950s when you have Ford Motor Company coming up with an idea of what that looks like and that model doesnt serve up today. Its Something Like when they engage in more empathy and some of the soft skills associated and they are penalized because they are not letting up so for me this is about competing and they need this more than we do. Host we are running out of time. If there is one take away so people understand they make sure when they read your book. Guest it as simple as this. It is and you come if your workplace because the problem is and you need to fix organizations so they work for everyone. Host michelle king, thank you for being here. It is a pleasure speaking with you. The book is the fix, and i wish you all the best. Thank you so much. Guest thank you. This program is available as a podcast. All after words programs can be viewed on the website, booktv. Org