Welcome, michelle king. Author of the fix. Guest hi. Thank you for having me. Host its a pleasure to have you here. This is such an important book because its not just about the problems that women face in the workplace. Its so focused on solutions, and i love your key insight which is that we tend to give advice to women, a lot of books and con friends for women, telling them what they need to do and how they need to change. We need to lean in, we need negotiate more, and if were too nice well never get the corner office. What you point out is the truth is that women actually dont need fixing. Were not the ones that are broken. What is broken is the workplace, and as we know, workplaces were designed by men, for men, when women try to act like men, it has not work out very well for us. And i love how you put it. You say we need to call a timeout on the women fixing epidemic. And as you point out, of course, michelle, gender equality is not just about women. Your book, the fix, i is not just for women. Its actually about all of us, its for all of us. Its about making our workplaces work better for everyone. So, thank you, welcome. And your back provides a guide. So why dont we dive right in here. Very interested, if you could share with us, what is your own background that brought you to this place to write the fix. Guest ive been researching this for many years, looking at why women arent advancing at the same rate as men and trying to understand that issue, and when i started out many, many years ago it was when the leanin, the leanin book by Sheryl Sandberg was popular and that fortunately rooted in what i called fix the women issue so asking women to do more or be nor fit into established systems of work that dont really value them, and so when i was researching it, i sort of sat firmly in that camp and looking at what women needed to do differently to advance at work and why women werent advancing. Very quickly and reviewing the literature i found that actually women exceptional in terms of leadership capability, networking capable, problem solving, howl they engage as managers, as employees, and a lot of that was new to me. Yao just tate networking as an example. Women are often told to attend networking programs and learn how to network and this is desing that women dont do that well because they dont have the same access as men. And thats a great example of how workplaces are broken, where simply because women dont have the same access they put the onus on women to solve but not numbering why women are excludessed from networks or when hey have accession they dont benefit the same way as men. So i found that women have everything they need to succeed and then some. The issue is more that wak workplaces were design bid and for an ideal type of work cher tends to be sort of a dominant, assertive, aggressive, health re sexual, ail bodied white male and the problem is most women dont feel that ideal what i call the prototype. The dawn draper from madmen and trying to fit that prototype it creates challenges for women when we fix them. The thing that is really interesting is that this prototype doesnt work for men so living up to mens face a 0 lot of challenges and my book really outlines how this prototype creates what i call culture of inequality where everybody is trying to lip up toking this ideal that fit nobody else and we need to be ourselves at work and be valued and need workplaces that designedder no different, quite the opposite of what we have today. Host so, tell me about your own background that led you this interest in the first place. Youre with netflix and previously with the united nations. Explain how you got interested in this topic. Guest i think ive been working in Human Resources for most of my career, and a lot of different countries, a lot oft different contexts and environments and sectors, and what i found consistently was gender inequality across these different environments, and i became increasingly interested in how workplaces werent real ya designed for difference hi and work in diversity and collusion, even in Human Resources, rarely led me to understand this issue and something has a practitioner of been looking at for the last 17 years and the research. So across the various qualification is have ive been trying to understand what it is about workplaces that dont really sort of support everybody to succeed in an equal way. So in researching this, it became apparent to me over the use us through me work and my research that there are solutions out there. There are ways we can fix this and so for me its about trying to shower that with everybody, make it accessible and make everybody understand that when it comes to equality and inclusion and equity, it really is all but jobs and so thats really what if a been trying to share this message through my own work as a researcher and also as a practitioner. Host im glad you brought up to point about how Much Research you have done. What you found that so much of the conventional wisdom about women is just wrong. And you have just referenced a few opinions. There are other areas that the conventional wisdom says that women act in a certain way that is incorrect . Guest yeah. I think across the board, if were asking women to do something that were not asking men to, we need to really think about it. When it comes to the leanin, i think that back was wherein in a time and written in a time and place where people wanted solutions. People leak the idea they alone can overcome inequality that hey that no hand in creating own though that logic is quite flawed. For me the problem is how to you say to people you can do everything just right, get the qualifications, have the experience, get the performance ratings, and still not succeed because success discriminates because workplaces werent designed for difference. Theyre designed to support this ideal to advance, and people that most closely fit that ideal are more likely to advance in organizations so the more you differ from it the more challenges youll face. Thats not something that we talk about. Organizations are inherently set up for this ideal prototype to succeed. And that creates a lot of challenges for anybody who might differ from the dawn drape ideal. The aim is to think awe the women fixing solutions, firstly is it something we are asking men to do . Secondly do any of the Solutions Work . A lotthem dont. Take the idea that women dont a s for pay rises rises and that o by a gone and theres a great study that shows thats notes the case. Women ask for pay rise just as much as men. Theres just 25 less likely to get them and part of the reason is just pure discrimination and also women are penalized when they do and for raises because theyre asserting themselves, defying the Standard Society that you have to be thankful you have a job and when women come in knowing their value and asking for what theyre worth, theyre panellized because they seen to be asserting themselves and stiff displaying masculine at tribeauts and the aim is to try to look at if we that these solutions its unfair to ask women to do things to fit some a Work Environment that maybe will never really value them and number two to look at the solutions and say do that it senator in most cases they dont because theres not addressing the underlying system of inequality, which is really the policies, the processes, the practices, in terms of day to day behaviors and the personal beliefs that leaders and employees have that value people differently and value men more than women and thats what creates inequality in workplaces. Host right. And i know of other research you cite in your book that talks it when women speak more than men in a business setting theyre penalize for it we think less of them. When men speak more in the same setting we think more of them, we reward them for that. And it does seem like theres this doublestandard in a variety of ways you point. To in fact thats in your actually the subtitle of the book. You talk out overcoming the invisible Barriers Holding women back at work. There are other sorts of invisible barriers we should be think can about and recognizing . Guest well, you just touched on one right there which is the conformity, something that women encounter early on in to careers and have to live up to the dawn drape ideal, that standard, that masculine ideal standard in terms not just how they look, the white middle class able bodied male and engage in the behaviors associated with what good looks like, dominant, assert it, aggressive, competitive those behaviors are traditional associated with masculine. So when women engage in to the behaviors they might be seen as competent but not likeable because you to be likeable you have to engage in behaviors associated with femininity. When women are meek, mild, unassuming and maternal, theyre really going to be disliked so when face this tradeoff at work and have to illinois gauge in behaviors that are dawn draper like to be competent but then when they engage in more feminine behaviors, to be likeable, theyre not seen as competent. So its this tradeoff between likability and competence and creates a lot of challenges for women early on in terms of their capability, perception of their capability, their opportunities for promotion and advancement, their access to pay and reward. So we see that really playing out early on, i this Double Bottom line. One of the big challenges the whole reason i wrote the book is that were often in denial about the challenges that it women face at work. Its something i discovered in my own research, that people assume work place is a meritocracy. This belief that everybody is the same because everybody is treated in the same way, and so people dont have different experiences of work, and with that kind of logic, were not only denying difference but were denying inequality, and it makes it really hard to solve. So whale always say to women is the very first barrier you are going encounter when you leave school and enter your workplace is conditioned expectations. We are conditioned to believe that work life with function like school life it and is a meritocracy and that we bill reward ford itselfs and success discriminates and you can do everything right and still not advance because you dont fit the protest otripe and youre prototype and have to juggle things to fit. In so the best thing people can do is arm themselves with awareness how workplaces dont work for everybody never same way and then how you navigate that and most importantly how we change workplaces to effectively accommodate difference and work for everybody. Host because i so interested in how throughout the book, you it brings home how really the male is the default and you talk about the don draper, the white male. The default which means that women or anyone who doesnt conform were necessarily the other, and it really came out you have a passage in the book where you talk about how if things like childcare benefits, parental leave, flex time, if we were actually creating a work force from scratch right now, for all of us, all of those things would be built in to the workplace. But because women are the other, and the workplace didnt start with women in mind, all of those things are now seen at benefits and your point is they shouldnt be benefits. They should be part of the fabric of work. Can you talk but that a little. Guest yes. I want to touch on something you said at the start of that, which is for me i think one thing we dont talk enough about is how you have this default standard and its something i assumed as well so i was in denial but the challenges men face and i assumed that the standard sort of worked for them, and it doesnt. So it actually works for a very small number of people and even then its not without its costs. So living up to don, requires, for example, that men dont share their life outside of work, and dont talk about having to balance fatherhood and working life and that men are silenced by the need conform or live up to the ideal standards so they engage in behaviors that can be exclusionary or they have to tolerate the behaviors even it if it makes them uncomfortable enwhen it comes to motherhood, theres this deperception that this is a woman problem, and so its just framed how we even the term motherhood at work, its how do we make workplaces work for parents, its really, okay, how do we sort of that do we need to apply help women fit into this Work Environment, and the reality is, youre not helping me. The workplace wasnt designed for me in the first place. This is actually fixing something that was originally broken and workplaces need women. We talk about that Women Deserve work places that value them and we need workplaces need us. We have capabilities that effectively they need and if you look at the theres great study by the Federal Reserve bang o stu louse which found over 30 years, the most productive workers are mothers and specifically moore two, and so its no surprise to mother because know what i takes to jig this but people often shocked when queue say that if workplaces wants the most productive worker theyd would design for that nomer its real estate pout slapping on a Flexible Work policy or providing some parental leave which in the United States is a huge issue, those are what i consider the bare basics that women need and order to work in workplaces and so do meant many need the opportunity to look at their children and stay at home and engage in Flexible Work but you can have all those policies in place and studies show theyre still not effective and the reason is is culture. So, all of my work, the whole book talks about culture whiches the lived experience of workplaces. If you think your your daytoday moments. If your boss is saying its really hard to advance mothers s who are reduces schedule oar orr denote you to this lower level role because your on ruleses work schedule. Those are all sort of invisible barrier that prevent women from advance can, the parttime penalty, where employ flees 0 reduce their work hours and work parttime have less access to longterm Career Opportunities and thats women, twothirds of all parttime workers are women. And so the challenge that inequality creates show numbers those daytoday moments. Policy and processes are acquired but if we have leader whose leading and managing the challenges and considering the whole person and your southwests outside of work and how best to destein a Work Environment to meet those need, that would sort of do away with your need to have a lot of of thieves policies to date we dont have that. Dont have leaders who are leading or creating environments that are equitable to both men and women in the whole person and what thered ins are outside of work. Host that is i would have developed you that as someone who has hired hundreds pea in my time, as an editor in chief, but also as a mom of two, i totally believe mothers are so productive and mothers of two, not surprised at all. But lets talk about, though, what the solutions here you talk but culture change but also about leadership. What is the balance to get to the right place in the workplace . Do we need a legislative change . Do is its just all about culture change . Do we need new laws . What is the right balance here to get to the place we nod to get to . I talk about this a lot in the book in terms of equality is really coming down all right. I believe its an invitation to leaders to lead and the reason i say that is because leaders set the standard for what good looks like when it comes to behaviors. Employees live up to that standard by modeling leadership, and so when we think about what good looks like, were looking at leaders and many thereof those leadersed today are in denial but the challenges that women fist and most unrepresented groups in organizations and if leaders dont under the barriers women face and not take steps to remove the barriers and most barriers happened in daytoda moments. Its when a woman gets spoken over in a meeting or theres a sexist comment or some Office Banter that excludes or marginalized employees at work. So those are the moments we need leaders to manage and outside of legislation which i dont cover any become because for me im really looking at workplaces and how leaders can take action today and what it is they can do today and for me, just simply managing the moments is something that every leader can do. So when you see discrimination, when you see marginalized as innings see exclusion, its your doesnt to pull employees aside, talk about it and use it as a learning moment, and really resetting the standards of behaviors and organizations, the challenge is to do that well, we need leader to know what the barriers are so they know that would Pay Attention to and what to look out to and in order to know what the barriers are i recommend reading my book you have to disrupt your own denial and think about, as a leader, how am i in a position of privilege . How die fit don, whether having a whiteness in common with don that makes is easier to advance enough youre a woman, white women in a leadership role you node to consider that and understand the barriers women of color face in organizations but if youre a man, you have your masculinity in common your whiteness or middle class or ableism so you need to become nut how you what you have in common with don makes it that much easier to advance etch nobody is saying, don draper type leaders havent had to work hard. Theyre saying eave everybody else has to work hard too and also have to overcome numerous invisible barriers. I have 17 in my become. Thats what we want leaders to do, start the process of becoming aware, disrupt your denial, understand your privilege and how that makes it that much harder for anybody else to advance, know the barriers and then manage the moments every day. Host so much of what your talking about is unconscious byas, and then some of it is outright buysas, the barrier. Bias, you mentioned 17 barriers. Can you talk but a few that we havent hit on . Sure. Sure. The think on the unconscious bias, im not a fan of unconscious boyas training. Research shows in fact a lot of unconscious bias training is ineffective because youre raising people who are winners and then you are telling them its unconscious and they feel they dont have to do anything about it and theres another great hbr study that talks to this, and research by my university has found that what we need to do is shift people from unconscious bias training to conscious decisionmake and can thats what my become tries to do by outlining the barriers so the really showing how the invisible barrier show us up and what to do t