Women at Work

Latest Episodes:

We Deserve Better Than “Attagirl” Oct 09, 2018

Show notes

Hearing your manager say you’re doing a great job is, of course, lovely. But without examples of your greatness in action, or suggestions for how to be even better, you don’t have the information you need to keep improving. Studies have found that women tend to get feedback that’s vague or tied to their personalities, which doesn’t boost our performance ratings. Meanwhile, men get feedback that’s specific and tied to business outcomes, which sets them up to develop and be promoted.

First, we talk with Harvard Business School professor Robin Ely about the research on women and feedback. Next, we talk with Tuck School of Business professor Ella Bell Smith about how to draw out actionable, useful feedback from our managers, and how to respond when we’re not getting what we need to succeed.

Our HBR reading list:

“What Most People Get Wrong About Men and Women,” by Catherine H. Tinsley and Robin J. Ely

“The Gender Gap in Feedback and Self-Perception,” by Margarita Mayo

“How Gender Bias Corrupts Performance Reviews, and What to Do About It,” by Paola Cecchi-Dimeglio

“Research: Vague Feedback Is Holding Women Back,” by Shelley Correll and Caroline Simard

Get the discussion guide for this episode on our website: hbr.org/podcasts/women-at-work

Email us: womenatwork@hbr.org

Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

Making Great Decisions Oct 01, 2018

Show notes

There’s a lot that goes into making a good decision at work: figuring out priorities, coming up with options, analyzing those — and several steps later, planning for what to do if you’re wrong. If you’re a woman, you are also factoring in how your colleagues expect you to ask for their opinions so you can create consensus. And if you do, they’re still likely to see you as indecisive and lacking vision.

We talk with Therese Huston, author of the book How Women Decide, about our strengths as decision makers and how to work around double standards when we’re making decisions and communicating them to our team.

Our HBR reading list:

“Research: We Are Way Harder on Female Leaders Who Make Bad Calls,” by Therese Huston

“Women and the Vision Thing,” by Herminia Ibarra and Otilia Obodaru

“Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?” by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

“Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement,” by Alison Wood Brooks

Get the discussion guide for this episode on our website: hbr.org/podcasts/women-at-work

Email us: womenatwork@hbr.org

Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

Managing Parental Leave (Yours or Someone Else’s) Sep 24, 2018

Show notes

Having a baby is exciting — and exhausting. Figuring out how to take parental leave, or manage someone who’s doing it, can add an extra wrinkle.

No matter how long you’ll be away from work, there’s preparation to be done: talking to your boss, making sure colleagues can cover your projects, handling unexpected needs and feelings.

With the help of our guest expert, Daisy Wademan Dowling, we talk about how to effectively plan for your parental leave or the leave of someone you manage. And through the story of a lucky woman whose organization offers 12 months of paid leave, we explore what our lives might be like if we had access to more generous leaves.

Our HBR reading list:

“The Best Ways Your Organization Can Support Working Parents,” by Daisy Wademan Dowling

“Need a Good Parental Leave Policy? Here It Is.” by Joan C. Williams and Kate Massinger

“How Companies Can Ensure Maternity Leave Doesn’t Hurt Women’s Careers,” by David Collings, Yseult Freeney, and Lisa van der Werff

“Denmark Has Great Maternity Leave and Child Care Policies. So Why Aren’t More Women Advancing?” by Bodil Nordestgaard Ismiris

“Why Walmart Expanded Parental Leave — and How to Convince Your Company to Do the Same,” by Sarah Green Carmichael

Get the discussion guide for this episode on our website: hbr.org/podcasts/women-at-work.

Email us: womenatwork@hbr.org

Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

Let’s Do Less Dead-End Work Sep 17, 2018

Show notes

Could you take notes? Would you mind ordering lunch? We need someone to organize the offsite event — can you do that? Whether you’ve just started your career or are the CEO of the company, if you’re a woman, people expect you to do routine, time-consuming tasks that no one else wants to do.

We talk with University of Pittsburgh economics professor Lise Vesterlund about why women get stuck with — and even volunteer for! — tasks that won’t show off our skills or get us promoted, and how that slows down our career advancement and makes us unhappy at work. Women of color in particular are asked to do more low-promotability projects, and we talk with inclusion strategist Ruchika Tulshyan about some ways they can say no. Lise and Ruchika tell us how they’ve handled these kinds of requests and what managers can do to assign work fairly.

Our HBR reading list:

“Why Women Volunteer for Tasks That Don’t Lead to Promotions,” by Linda Babcock, Maria P. Recalde, and Lise Vesterlund

“Women of Color Get Asked to Do More “Office Housework.” Here’s How They Can Say No.” by Ruchika Tulshyan

“For Women and Minorities to Get Ahead, Managers Must Assign Work Fairly,” by Joan C. Williams and Marina Multhaup

“‘Office Housework’ Gets in Women’s Way,” by Deborah M. Kolb and Jessica L. Porter

Get the discussion guide for this episode on our webpage, hbr.org/podcasts/women-at-work.

Email us: womenatwork@hbr.org

Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

Introducing Season Two Aug 27, 2018

Show notes

Women at Work is back Sept. 17 with stories, conversations, and practical advice about women and work. Expect to hear from us every Monday for the next couple of months.

Email us here: womenatwork@hbr.org

Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

Back in September with Season Two! Jun 19, 2018

Show notes

Hi team! Help shape our conversations by responding to these questions. You can answer as few or as many as you’d like:

What work decisions do you struggle with? Do you overthink? Stress about making the best choice? Is there a strategy you’ve found useful in making complex decisions? Ever wonder if being a woman influences your decision making?

Tell us about a time when a colleague took credit for your idea: What happened? How did it make you feel? Did you speak up about it? And what about when you’ve made it clear that you alone were behind a success: How did you do it? How did taking ownership make you feel? What questions do you have about claiming credit?

Do you describe yourself as a perfectionist? If yes, how does that show up in your job? Has that pressure ever gotten in the way of making a decision or finishing a project? If you know how to keep your perfectionism in check, how do you do it? What questions do you have about perfectionism?

Tell us about the “office chores” you do: Do they include taking notes? Handling lunch orders? Cleaning out the fridge? How did you wind up with this work? If you’ve been able to stop doing office housework, how did you say no?

Send your responses to womenatwork@hbr.org. Your answers will help us explore women’s experiences at work in the new season. And our producer might write you back to hear more about your story and ask if we can use it on the show.

Thanks for contributing! We’ll be covering a lot more in season two, and we’ll keep asking for your input.

Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

The Advice We Get and Give Mar 08, 2018

Show notes

Don’t negotiate against yourself. It’s OK to drop the ball. Sleep. We get wisdom from women who are experts on how we work — and who have advice on how to ask for more money, achieve more by doing less, and avoid burning out.

We talk with Duke University management professor Ashleigh Shelby Rosette about negotiating, Thrive Global CEO Arianna Huffington about sleep, Levo Chief Leadership Officer Tiffany Dufu about dropping the ball, and New Yorker writer Susan Orlean about confidence. Then HBR senior editor Alison Beard teams up with Amy to answer a few of your questions about work.

Our HBR reading list:

“Nice Girls Don’t Ask” by Linda Babcock, Sara Laschever, Michele Gelfand, Deborah Small

“Can an Agentic Black Woman Get Ahead? The Impact of Race and Interpersonal Dominance on Perceptions of Female Leaders” by Robert W. Livingston, Ashleigh Shelby Rosette, and Ella F. Washington

HBR Guide to Negotiating by Jeff Weiss

“How to Keep Email from Ruining Your Vacation” by Arianna Huffington

“Connect, Then Lead” by Amy J.C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, and John Neffinger

“Women, Find Your Voice” by Kathryn Heath, Jill Flynn, and Mary Davis Holt

Please fill out our listener survey at hbr.org/podcastsurvey — tell us what you think of the show!

Email us: womenatwork@hbr.org

Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

Work After #MeToo Mar 01, 2018

Show notes

The hand on the thigh. The creepy come-on. The lingering leer. These are some of the milder forms of sexual harassment that women have been reporting in the wake of the #MeToo outpouring. Other women have made allegations of sexual assault and even rape at the office.

While once such accusations would be met with — at most — a monetary settlement and a non-disclosure agreement, today they are more likely to be publicized and investigated. Some have welcomed this change but are worried it won’t last. Others are worried #MeToo has gone too far already and that perpetrators of harassment aren’t getting a fair chance to defend themselves — or that the movement will spark a backlash that’s ultimately worse for women.

We talk with UC Hastings professor Joan Williams about history and the law, HBR’s Amy Gallo about different ways to say “This is making me uncomfortable,” and Stony Brook University professor Michael Kimmel about how men can be allies.

Our HBR reading list:

Now What? by Joan C. Williams and Suzanne Lebsock

Getting Men to Speak Up by Michael S. Kimmel

How to Talk About Sexual Harassment with Your Coworkers by Amy Gallo

Have Our Attitudes About Sexual Harassment Really Changed? by Sarah Green Carmichael

Training Programs and Reporting Systems Won’t End Sexual Harassment. Promoting More Women Will by Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev

The Omissions that Make So Many Sexual Harassment Policies Ineffective by Debbie S. Dougherty

What Works for Women at Work by Joan C. Williams and Rachel Dempsey

Email us: womenatwork@hbr.org

Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

Mind the (Wage) Gap Feb 21, 2018

Show notes

Do you earn the same salary as your male coworkers? How certain are you? For women, the wage gap is a common concern, for good reason: the average, college-educated woman starts out earning close to what her male peers do, but over a lifetime, the pay gap widens. Even for women who graduate from college, get an MBA, and take a job at a high-paying firm — 10 or 15 years into our careers, we’re earning only 60 percent of what men are.

There are a lot of complex factors that go into creating the wage gap — race, education, industry. Amy, Sarah, and Nicole dive into one that doesn’t get as much attention: age. What’s going on in our careers that causes us to earn so much less as we get older? Guests: Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economist, and Margaret Gullette, an age critic and author.

Our HBR reading list:

The Average Mid-Forties Male College Graduate Earns 55% More Than His Female Counterparts by Erling Barth, Claudia Goldin, Sari Pekkala Kerr, and Claudia Olivetti

Ending the Wage Gap by Sudip Datta, Abhijit Guha, and Mai Iskandar-Datta

Women Dominate College Majors That Lead to Lower-Paying Work by Sarah Green Carmichael

Everyone Likes Flex Time, but We Punish Women Who Use It by David Burkus

How the Gender Pay Gap Widens as Women Get Promoted by Lydia Frank

The Maternal Wall by Joan C. Williams

Email us: womenatwork@hbr.org

Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

Lead with Authenticity Feb 09, 2018

Show notes

As leaders, we know we’re supposed to be authentic, but for women, that can be tricky. For one thing, it can be hard to even know what our “true selves” want with all the demands competing for our attention. For another, there are different expectations about how women should look, and behave. In this episode, we talk with an expert on authenticity, as well as a woman trying everyday to bring her best self to work and help others do the same. Guests: Tina Opie and Candice Morgan. Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City in Motion,” provided by Audio Network. For links to the articles mentioned in this episode, as well as other information about the show, visit hbr.org/podcasts/women-at-work.

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