That the women dont need fixing we are not broken and the workplaces are designed by men for when when women try to act like minute doesnt work out very well for us. That we need to call a timeout on how women on the fixate epidemic. Gender equality is not just about women it is about for all of us said making the workplace work better for everyone. So welcome and your book provides a guide so im very interested if you can share with us your own background that brought you to this place . I have been researching for many years looking at why women are not advancing so the lead in book by Cheryl Sanders was very popular and that was the fix the women solution and for them to be more to establish that quite frankly did not value them. So when i was researching it i was looking at what we needed to do differently. And very quickly with all the literature we found that women are exceptional in term of networking capabilities and problem solving. A lot of that was new to me. To take networking as an example women are also were told to attend networking programs and learn how to network it is the perception they dont do that well because they dont have the same access as men. That is how the workplace is broken and then we put the onus on the women and why women are excluded even when they have access is not the same way as men. So women have everything they need to succeed and then some. Because they were designed by and for that worker that tends to be a dominant and assertive and aggressive ablebodied white male and some dont fit that prototype. So it creates a lot of challenges. But equally whats interesting with the research is the prototype doesnt work for men so my book outlines this prototype everybody tries to live up to this so what we need is to value people and we make the quite opposite of what we have today. So tell me about your own background so previously you are aware so explain how you got into this topic. Working in Human Resources most of my career and a lot of Different Countries and environments and what i found consistently across the environments the work of diversity and inclusion let me to understand even as a practitioner and also the researcher what it is about the workplace that dont support everybody so it has become apparent over the years that there are solutions out there so it is about trying to share that with everybody to make that accessible so when it comes to equality and and through my own work as a researcher but also a practitioner. Im glad you brought up how Much Research you have done because what we have found that so much of that conventional wisdom is just wrong. Are there other areas that they act in a certain way . Acrosstheboard asking them when you think about it when it comes to lean in that is a time and place they like the idea that they can overcome inequality they have no hand in creating. So the problem is you can do everything just right and still not succeed because success discriminates with the ideal to advance and with that ideal standard with that organization the more you differ from it the more challenge you will face and thats that will be talk about it with the ideal prototype from anybody who might differ so its all the solutions something we are asking men to do because a lot of them dont if we just take for example and that is the pay gap so actually that is not the case they are just 25 percent less likely to get them in part of that is discrimination but women are penalized and for what looks like for women and almost thing full you have a job. Knowing their value they are penalized and those masculine attributes so look at the solutions to put into the Work Environment and look at those solutions and do they work . They are not addressing the overlying system of inequality the process and the practice with daytoday behavior and that value people differently in value men more than women. Host the other research that you cite in your book is that women speak more than men and that they are penalized so we think more of them. So there is a double standard in a variety of ways that you point to. So the subtitle of the book talk about the invisible Barriers Holding people back at work. Are there other invisible barriers we should think about . You touched on one right there they have to lived up to that ideal that masculine ideal standard. But then to engage of the behaviors with a dominant assertive aggressive and competitive and those are associated with masculinity so they could be seen as competent and then to be associated with femininity. And what that looks like for women and then to engage from those behaviors but then women engage in more feminine behavior to be likable so it is a tradeoff between likability and confidence with the capability and the opportunity for advancement so we see that playing early on and one of the big challenges the whole reason i wrote the book we are in denial that something we discovered in my own research that in the meritocracy to believe that everybody is treated the same way so people dont have different experience experiences. So with that kind of logic we not only deny the difference but inequality and so then to leave school and enter the workplace is the condition that it is a meritocracy and that success discriminates. So you can do everything right and still not advance because you dont fit the prototype so the best thing people can do is arm themselves and how you navigate that with how we try to accommodate the difference. And throughout the books the mail is the default talk about the boundary for the white male that is the default that women are anyone who doesnt conform are necessarily the other. There is a passage where you talk about childcare benefits, parental leav leave, flextime if they were creating a workforce from scratch right now, for all of us it would all be built into the workplace. And it did not start with women in mind now they are seen as a benefit but the point is they shouldnt be benefits for part of the fabric of work and talk about that. Yes so the thought of that is for me what we dont talk enough about is how you have this default standard. I was in denial about those challenges and those standards work for them and it doesnt so it works for a very small number of people and even then without a cost. So the men dont share their lifestyle outside of work or having to balance fatherhood and working life with the need to conform the ideal standards and to tolerate those behaviors even if it makes them uncomfortable and thats important when it comes to motherhood that it is seen as a woman problem so not how do we make those more apparent but okay what do we need to apply the workplace wasnt only designed for women in the first place only to fix what is broken but they need women. Workplaces need us from there is a great study by the federal bank of st. Louis that over a 30 year period the most productive workers are mothers and specifically mothers of two. The people are shocked when they say that because the workplace and they were designed for them. And with that civil war policy it is a huge issue and in the workplaces and they have the opportunity first day at home and to engage in work for you can have all those policies in place and studies show it still not effective. So all of my work it talks about culture of the experience of workplace. And to say there it is on a reduced schedule for we will devote you to the lower level. Those are the invisible barriers and those that reduce the workout and overwhelmingly that challenge that mother one that creates that is required of those are leading and managing to consider the whole powell person and then the Work Environment to meet those needs that does away with the need to have these policies and today we just dont have that were to create the environments to both men and women and the needs inside of work. As someone who has hired hundreds of people as the editorinchief and as a mom of two mothers i am not supplies at all but lets talk about with culture change but also leadership. What is the balance to get to the right place in the workplace do we need a legislative change . Is it all about culture change . New laws . What is the right balance so in terms of equality its an invitation that the standard when it comes to behavior and to model leadership so think about what that looks like we are looking at our leaders and many of those today and those are most up underrepresented. And then to understand the barriers and they happen as we mentioned before where the women are spoken over in the meeting with that office the inter that extent one expands or marginalizes but we need leaders to manage and outside which i dont really cover in my book because im working at looking at workplaces and what they can do today. So just simply to manage those moments is something every leader can do when you see discrimination and marginalization it is the opportunity to talk about it and to reset the standards of the organization and the challenges to do that well we need to know what the barriers are. And what to look out to. And in order to know what the barriers are, to do that you have to disrupt your own denial and think about how in my in a position of privilege how does it make it that much easier . And to understand that barriers but then you have your masculinity in common and then to think about what we have in common because nobody says but everybody else has to work it to. And with those new barriers. And with those leaders to do so understand your privilege and some of it was outright bait on bias. On the few that we havent hit on. And just to point out and with those constant barriers Research Shows and then you tell somebody in that study that talks to it and then what we need to do to the conscious Decision Making and that is exactly by outlining the barriers and what you can do to navigated. And some great examples with those expectations as they enter the workforce. And without that with the first three years of working life womens confidence drops more than 50 percent with their ability to reach a leadership position. And then to drop by than more than 40cent. And the reason for that is simply not knowing those challenges you will encounter but in terms of behavior and also how they look and so that we have to over perform to be as good as the mail colleagues. And then as you approach to motherhood you see a bunch of challenges that are not designed for mothers and when you become a mother with something physically that we see and then women that try to hide their pregnancy at work or when they are not feeling well. I have a great story around a colleague who was given lean and when she was four months pregnant and told by her boss because she was pregnant now she was less capable and less confident so she really had to prove herself to lean in even further. She was already performing at a high rate and she was written up by overworking and damaging her health to put her baby at risk. So this is the tax around motherhood they may call it the motherhood penalty where simply because they dont look like the prototype and those that have those stereotypes so we see that play out with a reduction of wages and not controlling for all those factors and we see that play out with the most productive workforce. And those are the challenges and the last phase of womens careers. One of the Biggest Challenges is we are unaware that Women Leaders face went to break through the grout on the glass ceiling, thats just not the case they are highly capable when they are leading because every day they do fire the standard for what leadership looks like so face the numerous challenges like backslash to undermine and have the capability or to support their leadership decisions and then with the stereo typical podcasting label Women Leaders like i. C. E. Queen and to make it hard that is not associated with that. Its important to understand that all the different challenges women face and i say it is a roadmap and with the past experiences in the future and those barriers that might be coming up for you. So what help to prevent those internalizing forces around confidence. And breaking down those physical barriers especially the past couple of years to focus on metoo where the sexual harassment. So when we do get together and have these conversations among ourselves, in general eight they are the barriers women are interrupted three times more frequently than men are interrupted. Each one of these barriers that you talk about and that is backed up by research to say being talked over or ignored or belittled or left out of the conversation or ignored when the guys are all talking about the game it is not outright sexism that we saw 33 years ago but if you add up all of the invisible barriers and it leads to this lack of opportunity and recognition for women in the workplace that is not working for women. So i want to ask you about quotas. There are a number of other people and other countries they have instituted quotas you have fairly strong feelings about that. Why dont you explain. People love quotas i was have to apologize first everybody has a strong opinion just for transparency but then researching the challenging women experienced and also men that i came to realize the damage that quotas do. And the reason im really imposed of them is a lot of organizations this is the go to to mandate a certain percentage of leadership position or copy and paste women into leadership positions and then hold women accountable for the inequality that they have a hand in creating. We see that happen all the time. When i interview women and men for phd research, i found the barriers that were compounded through quotas. Women already have the legitimacy called into question. They assume women are competent and capable but when you copy and paste a woman into a leadership position she got that role because of the diversity and inclusion quotas. So instantly everybody questions the capability to question her legitimacy to be in that role and faces tremendous backlash and its very damaging to women. They question if they truly are ready for the role. So this plays out with men that the number one barrier to mens advancement in organizations according to men is the advancement of women in those and then to advance women into these positions and i would be fine with that if it was true that we just need quotas the only way to fix the environment but quotas dont work with the lack of sustainability so when you put a woman into leadership role simply having a woman in the leadership role and that when women are ceos they are more likely to be dismissed and 60 percent more likely to be replaced by a white mail. The more likely to innovate and innovation is critical to the future world of work so this is less about how we get a quick fix and make the Company Look Like weve got some gender representation and leadership positions and more about on her standing by you dont have that now and what is it so its about taking a longterm approach to this and a commitment to fixing the workplace. Host lets unpack on that for a moment. This is something very often the Senior Leadership will say to me we want more women in the Senior Leadership we just cant find them. What i always say to them is look at your entrylevel and if it is 5050 and your readership is 80 or 90 now, you are losing these women and its not that they all want to go off and have babies. You need to look at every single level fantasy where the problem is with these organizations and i think what you are talking about does lead to more innovation so it all kind of comes around to that success being a longterm proposition but i also love what you are talking about here guess it is a number of years but its not a generation. If you look at a law firm, Consulting Firm a business where you bring people i into the enty level within seven or eight years they can become senior people. Go ahead. Guest i get told that all the time looking at the energy and resource sector. Organizations that do this well have the right environment so its easy to attract women into the organization. It could be the best culture and environment and we know those that support us. When we find women what they are saying is they cant and the reason is how many times have qualified able candidates you can simply post in event to a qualified representative from a range of different sectors and expose your self to ensure you understand the capability that youve not been exposed to it and when it comes time to hiring a leader, they no qualified candidates and thats something every organization can do today. Its about finding the highly experienced candidates and the same way they do for their underrepresented group so we see see this in the organizations where this kind of lazy to come find them. We exist we are out there its just not made it your mission and that is something that is true. They dont have the exposure to the candidates answer that is something i think every leadership needs to take. Guest host but it groups that are a key point and you talk a lot in the book about intersection. If you could explain what that is and how it plays out. Guest i talk about it particularly as a White South African 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 to advance compared to different racial and ethnic minority groups. Specifically in the book i talk about how the different challenges that the more ways whats really important for me is when we think about women and how they look at the prototype engaging in those behaviors is important they have to be prepared and that is to know what the barriers are and the lack of awareness and how they have a role to play in removing the barrier and so we see this all the time and it comes to sort of racism and gender you get the sort of mix and its a whole new experience in the organization. Something simple speaking out. They have to overcome racism and sexism so one of the stereotypes of their. When they speak of that is much more noticed in a televised. So is it could be seen automatically even if im asserting myself in a standard way. It creates a heavy load to carry in terms of. We can make it our mission and how they show up for all areas particularly when it comes to race because i talk about it in the buck if you look at the history of feminism its fallen a long time ago. Liberationists were not interested in advancing the needs of all. You see that with books where we advanced those that are most likely to advance in organizations because they have everything in common with the prototype and if you look at the distribution of the leadership positions today it supports that claim so it is important that we think about how we create an environment that supports everybody to advance. Ultimately the whole setup in the prototype doesnt really work. Its about having organizations defined for one particular prototype and more about creating organizations around value and kindness or innovation and creativity and giving people different ways to engage behaviors. Im not saying all masculinity is bad or good. They might be perfectly appropriate for the situations to engage in but giving the men and women the freedom to engage in a wide range of behaviors and that is something we need with Technological Advancements like ai and robotics that will transform the way workplaces were. Host you say we need to extend or white privilege. Guest the key to this is allied ship when you know what your privilege is i know that even though its hard for me it is that much harder for a woman of color. I should make it my mission for the qualified underrepresented ethnic minority groups and to take my role one day and have them in position to advance into my role when nightly and thats what im asking men to acrosstheboard so you can pay it forward in that way. The key is knowing how they play out differently if a so when that plays out i know in passing if people sort of ground or step back or go quiet they would amplify the message and would be penalized for speaking up so that is what its about. You know where you can play a role to amplify the message or supports them. The one thing i will say is it is important in this work when you extend by calling out the behaviors or make them aware of its important not to approach it from the position of helping you because we see that in these efforts particularly with men. Research finds discrimination, marginalization and the daytoday comments when you witness that it has the same detrimental impact as if you have experienced it yourself and that is because most people dont like to watch their colleagues discriminated against. It creates a hostile Work Environment. This is about environments that work for everybody and you feel better when you are an ally and are more likely to advance in that environment. That is the key is realizing it serves to benefit everybody. You dont want to be less patronizing. You dont want to look like you are trying to help someone who may not actually want help so do you have a private conversation with a person, how do you support them in a way that works for everyone . Guest i dont need men to help me because im competent and capable as i am. Its a label ive given in the marginalization to let me give you an example. When i was a manager my boss picked up the towel and threw it at me and said you are a woman, why dont you wash the dishes. All of the females that supported me started on to the kitchen and none of them said anything. In that moment i had a choice i could stick up for myself and my gender was a core part of my identity or i could play a long than i would be mocking the core part of who i am. I turned to him and said you have to pans when you wash the dishes your self. It. These moments that up and it does make you question your legitimacy and whether you fit into the organization. Research actually talks like somebody is humming in your workplace and you hear it and go on asking people and they say its not me. But in fact you are the one that needs to fix the results of that is what its like from daytoday with background noise that they ate takes a toll. They could have said dont do that. They could have taken action but they have to know what the barriers are and acknowledge it in that moment. Its happened about a thousand times to almost every working woman but the key is not to defend herself but one of the guys to recognize that its wrong and to call it out. Guest to close the prototype of power to call it out and i would say it is hard for people from marginalized groups to do that. I would have walked away and it was easier for me to do it you have to call it out and when you do, it is powerful you are resetting the norms in the team and its a powerful thing to do. Host you went over this relatively quickly earlier. There are three stages and obstacles lets walk through that so you understand where you are going with that. Guest when i started researching, i assumed women followed the same path and it wasnt until i started the research and study and found they tend to follow three distinct phases through their career. Its called the idealistic achievement phase and the reason is they are not meritocracy is and we believe it might happen to some people but its not that going to happen to us and if it does, we alone can overcome it so it is that belief based on what weve been told and as i said before it hasnt been prepared to that in turn the station and that shifted through. Host you said that about 24 to 35. Guest i hate getting hard winds because iwines because itn the circumstances. You will encounter some of those barriers lik like the common fof the expectation performance and a lot of those but the important thing to remember is we walk through theitalkthrough their ce barriers dont just disappear. They can sort of reappear and show up at different points for example the conformity you are most likely to confront that when you enter workplaces. I tried to show when you might encounter the barriers so in that idealistic phase its to 45 you enter the motherhood phase where you are either approaching motherhood or at the age society thinks he might be to keen to and in a position to take on and manage the role. Even if you choose not to, you will encounter a lot of the challenges associated with it. For good reason, women have to work all the barriers from the fourth also new barriers as they try to leave the gender norms said that is really when that starts to happen and also things like the motherhood tax and penalty and something we havent talked about which is the mental and emotional load they carry are having to manage the activity in the households into the domestic sort of responsibilities and children schedules and of the invisible loads of women carry outside of work so it is difficult for women to survive a business the contribution this is what makes women remarkable as weve gone through that, they want to come tribute and make a difference and easy year for the next generation. That is why the final phase whats amazing is they still have to navigate all these barriers just to do their job they dont want to come to work and just do their job they want to make it easy for the next generation and i think that is an incredible. I talk about how hard it is to do that because they have to achieve the impossible by navigating the barrier to do their job and to then try to make it easy. Contribute for the next. Those are the three phases and its important that the leaders in particular talk about how they differ in that way so they can support the development of. Host so much of what we hear this is when women are having children, families and the elderly relatives to care for and there is so Much Research that shows us that women who choose not to marry and not to have children face that same kind of career gap in that same age group so there is the expectation that you are talking about even though they are not conforming to the stereotype of the woman with the baby and the elderly parents. Guest it is incredibly challenging. Ive been in meetings where they will make assumptions by saying things like shes likely to get married soon so probably shouldnt put her in that role. Host that is a great point. Ive been in more meetings than i can possibly count where someone will say heres a great opportunity and someone will say susan would be perfect for that and someone will say you know what, she has a baby at home, she isnt going to want to travel recurred her husband has a great job, she isnt going to want to put in as many hours. Theres all these assumptions and opportunities that they would be great for that are never even presented to them. So ask, dont make assumptions on her behalf. Guest most people need international ends to some degree. They need t that exposure to the offices around the globe into the experience in different environments because that is how you learn that men are much more likely to get those opportunities and it is because we make these assumptions about the womens capabilities. And i always say you can be penalized with all of these without actually even being a mother and so that is why it is important that we start to untapped dot and those opportunities are critical because without them, it is to lean on these things like she needs more time in the role for linux judgment as catchphrases when in reality its about how can we afford the same opportunities and understand what it is as an organization that we need to do to help women accommodate and also the men because increasingly they want to be at home with their kids and involved fathers and talk about that and so we need is ons on both sides. Host hell do we convince men that this actually is their issue . They care a lot about family time but when you talk about the people in leadership, they see this as why should i give up the power i have. Its showing us there is a business imperative to do this witbut companies that have gendr balance our more successful and innovative, the return on equity improved. There is a lot of research those positions of power, what is the reason that will make them open their eyes to understand what the barriers are and why they should allow women through the door as well flex guest today to date a lot e work and the inclusion space has not been inclusive to men, so we havent been speaking to these barriers that are numerous of the example there are about six of them everything from silencing men at work to count her in the ideals and the challenges they face from the breadwinner image and the associated cost and death. What happens in more places women have to confirm this, the example of my most proving the dishtowel. I am not a fan of Business Cases and i say that because they are inherently misogynistic. Is required for every other area but even with the Business Cases that clearly show that diverse teams and organizations in for inclusive leaders are better across the board in terms of innovation and creativity. Productivity, revenue growth, it is just better to have a diverse team ended makes sense because your customers are not all the same so you need is for the global marketplace. Even the Business Case and talking to the barriers in case i found in my research at least on the work that ive done, what they really bring home is that there is an assumption that the bond draper ideal is something we need to address, so there is the belief that he got us here living up to death so it must still serve us and the reality as it doesnt. I worked with an Organization Recently and they had this question and had to say to them you dont have the common behavioral and sort of emotional diversity to be a very Effective Team because youre all thinking and acting in the same way, but actually if you look as i mentioned before a lot of the disruptive changes that are coming because of things like ai, robotics, the internet of things, we see at least 60 of jobs the next three years according to the World Economic forum are forcing us to change, so we see the need for different types of skill sets in when you look at those, there are collaborations, effectiveness of being more inclusive and engaging in sort of behaviors that we typically associate with Women Leaders and much more Transformational Leadership and more collaborative. So, i research this myself and asked 120 leaders, men and women in an organization where are the top capabilities required in the world of work and things like achievement revolt oriented people, collaboration, creativity, theres a lot of the typical behavior. And i asked them out of the top five, how many do women have today as respondents say they have four out of the five top abilities. Both men and women say that then house one ouhave one out of fiv. The reason for that is draper was designed back and i told them that in the book where you have Ford Motor Company coming up with the idea of what it looks like in terms of leadership, and that model, the idea doesnt serve us today and it wont service in the future. So, men need this more than one income of. Something like when they engage in more empathy and the softer skills with if they compete in the future world to be inclusive leaders, they need this more than we do. Host we are running out of time. If you could end on if there is one take away that you would like to make sure people understand when they read your book, the fix. Guest it isnt you, its the workplace. Get to know the barriers because the problem is and you and we need to fix organizations so that it works for everyone. Host michelle king, thank you for being here today. Its a pleasure speaking with you. The book is quote out the thick, and i wish you all the best. Guest thank you so much. This program is available as a podcast. All after words programs can be viewed on the website, booktv. Org